The Demonchasers
by selkie
Summary: Buffy Stargate Just because Xander is gone from Sunnydale doesn't mean that his life is exactly normal.
1. 1

Not my characters. I'm just borrowing them for a bit, and apologies if they get roughed up a bit along the way.  
  
The Demonchasers  
  
Prologue- Sunnydale, CA  
  
Vikkii. His court-appointed attorney was named Vikkii. She had frizzy long hair, glasses on a cord around her neck, and wore a sweater with teddy bears on it, for all the world looking like she should be the children's librarian at the Sunnydale public library. Not a person who should be defending dangerous criminals like him.As she turned around to fuss with something at floor level amid an office overrun with piled papers and binders, Xander found himself thinking he was so screwed it wasn't even worth asking if it would take a regular or phillips head to get him back out of this mess.  
  
"Care for some tea, Mr. Harris?"   
  
"Um, yeah, sure. One sugar, I guess." The G-man rubbed off on you in mysterious ways.  
  
"Illegal electric kettle." Vikkii said as she placed two mugs on her desk. "But then this place, this town, tends to be in such a state of insanity, one takes one's pleasures in life where one can find them. Though for your case, I suspect popcorn might be more appropriate." She took a sip from her mug, which had a cartoon Cathy on it.  
  
"Why's that?"  
  
"Because we're going to watch the security tape from the bank now, and it would be nice to know if there's anything you would like to tell me about why it caught you hitting Mr. Castelios in the arm with an axe."  
  
"Would you believe self defense?"  
  
"Unfortunately, not from what the camera shows." She turned the power on the television, hit a few buttons, and the grainy black and white scene started to play. He saw himself swinging at the Xylyffa demon with the axe, the backside of the demon as it howled in pain, and then both Xander and the demon stumbling out of camera range.If only the demon's face, which had been decidedly unhuman-looking at the time, had been visible on camera, the whole case would have probably been swept under the rug like the rest of Sunnydale's supernatural crimes. And fortunately, no Buffy on camera either. At least the Slayer wasn't caught up in his legal mess even though she had been the one doing most of the fighting with the pancreas-eating Xylyffa.  
  
"Too bad because he really is one of the bad guys."  
  
"Unfortunately for you, during normal business hours, Castelios is the man promising to bring three hundred desperately needed new telemarketing jobs to vacant space in the Sunnydale Industrial Park. The new mayor loves the guy, talks about a new era for Sunnydale starting with those jobs, and it's one huge lovefest. It was all I could do to keep the charges down to felony assault, and not have you facing attempted murder."  
  
"Great. So I know what happens next. I mean I've seen a bunch of Oz episodes, and I'm freaking a little because that's a pretty ugly future there. I do not need a boyfriend named Christopher." Xander slumped in his chair, face in his hands, and tried not to cry.   
  
"There is one other option. I've talked with the DA, and it would get charges dropped, and Castelios doesn't care where you are as long as you aren't still in Sunnydale to bother him." He relaxed just a little bit. Maybe Vikkii was better at her job than appearance gave her credit for.  
  
"So I leave town or something like that?"   
  
"Something like that. How do you feel about serving your country in the armed forces?"  
  
"Serious? No way. You are serious. A freind of mine dated one of those ROTC dudes, and talk about some seriously messed up stuff going on there. I can't do that." He was not going to turn into a drugged-up knock-off of Riley Finn.  
  
"The offer is on the table for the next two weeks." She raised one hand. "I heard the rumors about what went on with UCS ROTC. And believe it or not, I do have a fairly good idea of what goes on in the town. You aren't the first human to get tangled up in that sort of mess with the Sunnydale weird and then end up in my office when all you were trying to do is stay alive.   
  
So I want you to walk out the door here and lock yourself into your house tonight, and think about it. There are other branches of the military that aren't the Army. Go, pick one of them and serve for four years. That time you're in a less dangerous place than here, and maybe you decide you like the world outside the madness. If you do want to come back to Sunnydale when your time's up, you might have picked up a skill or two that will help you survive here. And you won't have a felony conviction on your record that can keep you from owning the sorts of firepower you really want on your side when you're chasing Xylyffa demons.   
  
Now, finish your tea, and shoo! I've got my next client coming in at three."  
  
Three years later  
  
Peterson Complex Temporary Enlisted Quarters- Colorado Springs, CO  
  
Airman First Class Xander Harris balanced himself on the chair in his studio apartment. With one hand, he pulled back the curtain valance, the other hand tucking a small satchel between the valance and the wall. The packet didn't have much in it: a bit of griffin feather, some powdered alzurian, and a pinch of mixed herbs he called Willow's original double secret recipe. But housekeeping here was a bit too enthusiastic at times, and he didn't want them to accidentally toss the satchel while he was at post. He was running low on feathers and he would not be able to make it to the magic shop in Manitou Springs for more on Thursday, which was also the day he was supposed to be using to find an apartment in town.   
  
Funny how you could take a person out of Sunnydale, slap a uniform on him, and try to tell him he had a whole other life to live, but the 'dale kept clinging onto you like a used dryer sheet you found stuck inside your shirt two weeks after you did laundry. So even though he was now living in a place that was supposed to be all science and space and processed cheese foods of the future, he was still putting up wards that were supposed to keep the non-bloodsucking type of demons out of his home, and reporting to work every day with Lucille strapped in a decidedly non-regulation sheath on his back. He sighed as he stepped down off the chair. Maybe as soon as he settled in here, he needed to take leave and go back to the 'dale for a while and do a little bit of vampire staking with freinds for old times sakes.   
  
"Harris, time to roll." The knock at his door interrupted his thoughts. "Mountain's messing around with the threatcom levels again, and it's going to take until the day after the end of the world to get through the oh so pearly gates."   
  
"I'm coming Williams. Just gotta grab my keys, and I'm ready to rock." Xander said, pocketing his wallet, and heading out the door. "Or I guess I mean go under the rock." He locked the door behind him, and followed Williams out to his truck.  
  
He had met Airman First Class Jonah Williams the week before at a briefing for new transfers to Cheyenne Mountain. The other man had grown up in East St. Louis, which was kind of like the Midwestern version of Sunnydale but with a few more drug dealers and a few less demonspawn. He coped with the problems of life in the same way Xander did, and the two had been paired for guard duty because they could tolerate and laugh at the other guy's jokes when no one else could stand them.  
  
The drive to Cheyenne went quickly, even with the gate delays. Williams parked, and the two made their way to their post inside the complex between two different project areas.   
  
"And what's out job for the day?"  
  
"Make sure that the people working on the top secret project on the left side of the hall don't get lost on the way back from the bathroom and end up seeing what's going on with the top secret project on the right side of the hall."  
  
"Try to find a better route to the bathroom than the one that takes fifteen different right turns and twenty minutes."   
  
"Try to convince that pretty redheaded civilian worker that I do have honorable intentions."   
  
"Gotta be pretty good with a poker face for that one Harris."   
  
"Not that I have a chance. She's probably got a boyfriend already. Hello there, sir. Can I check your idenification, please?" Xander said as a captain walked past their post, badge already in hand.  
  
"Thank you, Captain Wurtzel. Have a good day." The morning trickle of people turned into a rush as a mix of military and civilian workers streamed through Xander and Jonah's checkpoint. The two men settled into an efficient rhythm of checking badges to faces, running the badges through a scanner, then waving the groups through to their respective little dungeons. Finally, the rush ended, and Jonah excused himself to go take a leak. Xander entertained himself by trying to come up with least likely projects that were going on in his hall. He may not have been cleared to know what was behind the doors to the left, but he was going to have fun guessing. He had just mentally filed the cloning of Heidi Klum in the appealing but unlikely box when the first siren went off and the speakers kicked on.   
  
"We have a security breach in progress. A basewide lock down is now in effect. Security doors are sealed."  
  
"What the fuck?" Xander drew his sidearm. "Williams, you hear me there? Get yourself locked in the bathroom, and you'll miss all the fun."  
  
"All civilian and non-essential workers will remain in their designated areas. Lockdown is in effect. This is not a drill." He barely heard the thunk of boots against hallway underneath the shrill siren, but the acoustics of his hallway post made it hard to tell from which direction.  
  
"Second right turn from you. I'm almost back to you. " The normal yellow white hall lights turned off, and were replaced with glowing red bulbs. After all, the Air Force didn't want you to be able to actually see what was going on in a crisis.   
  
"Holy shit." Xander heard Williams' yell from what he thought was around the corner. "What the hell is that?"   
  
Xander charged ahead, sidearm in hand as Williams retreated back towards the guard post.   
  
"Williams?"  
  
"It's right behind me, and it looks meaner than Shaft and really pissed."  
  
"What is it?"  
  
"That."  
  
The monster rounded the corner, and yowled, the low pitched sound actually making the sirens seem quiet in comparison. Xander couldn't get a good look at it in the dim light, but it seemed like a bit of Polgara, a bit of Queller, and something he couldn't quite recognize. First, see if he could get it calmed down.  
  
"Easy puppy dog. No need to go chasing after people here. Does puppy want to sit and stay?"  
  
"Ugliest dog I've ever seen, Harris." Williams had his sidearm drawn as well.  
  
"Yes. Are we a good demon? Can we be nice and calm and go back to our cells? You aren't getting out of here, so let's make it easy for everyone."  
  
The monster yowled and charged. Williams fired, hitting the monster square in the chest and face. The monster wasn't fazed, and kept up the charge.   
  
"Shit!" Guns weren't going to work then. Xander dropped his sidearm and fumbled down the collar of his shirt with one hand, pulling Lucille from her hidden sheath. The other hand grabbed a pencil. If not steel, then silver or wood. He took a couple more steps toward the monster just as it jumped, landing atop Williams. Williams went to the floor, the monster easily twisting his neck until it snapped. Xander tried to run then. He got a handful of steps before he heard the monster charge up behind him. One chance to get it right. He spun around, bringing his knife and the pencil up to where the monster's vital organs would be.   
  
The monster jumped at him, he stabbed, and the monster crushed into him, forcing him to the ground. The pencil went sideways from his hand, but Lucille slid into the monster true. The monster screamed again, its arms reaching for Xander's neck. Then it went limp. On top of him. Xander gasped for air. He had long ago gotten used to the idea of dying young, but smothered under what must have been a three hundred pound demon that definitely had a body odor problem and was still oozing gooey blue blood all over him didn't exactly seem like a grand old blaze of sad cowboy glory.   
  
Get out from under it. He tried to squirm away, but the blue ooze was making it difficult for him to get traction to move. Roll then. One, two, three, push. Almost made it. One, two, three, push again. He planted a boot on the monster's leg, and kicked. This time, it worked, and worked well, sending him skidding in a slick of blue ooze out from under the body, which crashed back down onto the floor. He was starting to hurt all over now, but the worst of it seemed to be his chest and ankle. Radio back at the checkpoint. He was going to get up and crawl over there.   
  
He tried to sit up, and a wave of pain and nausea washed over him. Or maybe he wasn't going to get up just yet. Deep breaths, or as deep as he could make them without his chest hurting even more. Very not good. He just wished the sirens would shut up so he could get a little rest and then he could go to the radio.  
  
"We've got it. Level Three, section Blue Charlie. Or I should say one of the guards got it." Xander looked toward his toes, and saw a group of heavily armed men charged down the corridor.  
  
"How the heck did it get so far so fast?" They came closer and closer to the mess.  
  
"Don't know, but heads are rolling on this. Two men down here." One man went to check on Williams, three others kept rifles pointed at the monster, and the last bent over him to check his pulse and pupils, bobbling a bit on the slippery floor.   
  
"How you doing?"  
  
"Everything hurts."  
  
"How about your neck and back. Don't want you sitting up then. Don't want to move you if it's spinal area."  
  
"Head, chest, ankle, pride. So they just up and moved the Initiative to Colorado?" Xander asked. The soldier looked confused at his question.  
  
"Never heard of the Initiative. What I have heard of is a doctor here who is going to look you over and fix you up better than new." Xander heard one of the other men calling for medical assistance.  
  
"How about just good as new. I like me how I am, Zeppo and all." It was getting harder to breathe.   
  
"Then that's what it will be. We've got Dr. Frasier on her way." 


	2. 2

It seemed like he was standing in the middle of a travel brochure for some faraway national park: blue skies with only a hint of cloud overhead, odd dusty ground intermixed with scrubby not too green plants sprouting tiny flowers, dusty hills in the distance, heat enough to feel like a blast furnace.   
  
"And you wouldn't believe the sunsets out here." Xander spun around as an almost familiar voice spoke behind him. Frizzy hair, glasses, a sweatshirt with Halloween pumpkins on it.  
  
"Vikkii? What the hell are you doing here? And where is here anyways?"  
  
"Here is western Australia. Would you believe it gets hotter in Alice Springs in the summer that it really is in Hell on a regular basis? Anyways we need to talk."  
  
"Talk about what? And why are you here with me? I'm supposed to send you an e-mail every six months saying 'haven't gotten kicked out of the USAF yet', and that was going to be it. No Christmas cards or anything."  
  
"It's not the messenger that's important here. It's the message that counts. But would it make it easier for you if I looked like someone else? I can do Joyce Summers if you prefer. You always did seem to have a bit of the Mrs. Robinson vibe going on with her."  
  
"Um, I guess you're fine like that."  
  
"Good. Let's have a walk then. We're not too far from what you need to see." She grabbed him by the elbow and they started walking toward the hills. Time blurred, jumped a bit, and distances were covered before he could say anything more.  
  
"Here." He looked where Vikkii pointed. A high chain link fence stretched from center to left to right in a line as far as he could see, almost like some sort of cut rate discount version of the Great Wall of China.   
  
"It's a fence. A Really long fence. I think I'm missing out on the message here." Xander said. Vikki said nothing to him, but instead crouched down, making chirping noises at something in the brush.  
  
"It isn't one of those big scary snakes the crazy dude on tv likes to grab and torture, is it?"  
  
"Definitely not that." she said as something hopped into her arms. "Just the reason for the fences they built all over the place here and the source of more trouble than you could ever imagine." He blinked and got a good look at the furry animal in her arms.  
  
"A bunny? Did Anya send you here after me?"   
  
"No your ex-girlfriend didn't. But she was right in some ways." Vikki stroked the bunny down its back and it went limp in her arms.  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"The rabbits don't belong here. They crowd out the local wildlife, eat everything in sight, and in general overrun a place that's extremely fragile as it is. And they breed too fast for people to just kill them all. So even though they never should have been brought here, even though some things should have just stayed buried, they fence off any try to contain the areas of infestation and do the best they can. There's a road over the next hill, and every truck that goes through the gate, they go over thoroughly."   
  
"To keep the rabbits from expanding?"  
  
"Because that place is defenseless against what they can do." The rabbit twisted in Vikkii's arms, it's face contorting into a snarl, then going into full game face mode. Xander took a step back from it, grabbing for a sidearm that wasn't there, and then everything faded to red.  
  
******  
  
It was Movie Morning in the Stargate conference room, and Jack O'Neil didn't even think to joke about bringing the popcorn. At one end of the room, a civilian tech named Emily Ramsey sat, remote control in hand, sending a movie cobbled together from a dozen or more security cameras in the mountain through its paces. The group big enough to overflow the room had watched it straight through the first time; this run would a slow progression of freeze frames and slow motion with Sam Carter providing the color commentary.   
  
"The predator from PX-782 came through the gate directly behind SG-5. It was close enough that we couldn't get the iris in place to block its arrival. It went down the ramp, striking Sgt. Ramirez from behind and knocking him to the ground. SG-5 fired on it, but our weapons had no effect on it." Frame by frame showed the brief gun battle before the predator charged out of the room, through the closed blast door, and into the maze of the mountain's hallways.   
  
"From there, it went through two other sealed blast doors before ending up in 3 Blue Charlie. Airman Williams opens fire." the video showed the predator's fatal attack against Williams. "And unfortunately, the bullets have the same effect on it that they did earlier. Airman Harris sees what happens, and decides to try a different weapon." Harris drew a decidedly non-regulation knife from a sheath along his back.  
  
"And he gets lucky and hits a vital organ." General Hammond said.   
  
"Actually, he didn't. Caus of death for the creature is best described as anaphylactic shock." Dr. Frasier answered. "A sudden instant allergic reaction to the blade of the knife."  
  
"So what you're saying is that the predator went through three blast doors, killed four people, and put six more in the infirmary, and then buys it because it runs into PX-782's version of a bad peanut allergy reaction?" Jack asked.  
  
"Pretty much that." Sam said. "We've run some tests on the knife blade. It's an alloy of silver and steel that's unlike anything else I've ever seen. Right now, we can't say for certain if the blade is of terrestrial origin. I asked Daniel to have a look at the markings on the hilt of the knife to see if anything looks familiar."  
  
"I did a quick check." Daniel said, taking his cue from Carter. "Preliminary research on the hilt markings suggest it came from a Romanian monestary. The brothers of St. Istvan of the Sunlight are known in the weapons collectables market for manufacturing a small number of knives and short swords every year, and for some reason, even Nicolae Ceaucescu left the monks in peace during the Communist rule years. There is mention about the purity of their blades, but I haven't gotten much further than that so far."  
  
"Thank you. We'll have someone else continue that research." Hammond said.   
  
"Any ideas if our Airman Harris was lucky or good?"  
  
"Sir." A personnel staffer looked up from her seat in the corner. "We pulled his file as requested. AFVABs just barely high enough to get him into the Air Force. Good service record, nothing unusual turned up when they did his security clearance last year. Only odd thing was that he was originally supposed to be assigned to NORAD Continental out of Tyndall in Florida instead of here, but as far as we've been able to track down, got sent to Colorado because of a paperwork snafu."  
  
"And any explanations from Harris himself?" Hammond asked.  
  
"Sir, Harris came into my infirmary with a punctured lung, six broken ribs, and an ankle injury. Since the attack he's either been unconscious or on heavy enough painkillers that his grip on reality is not too steady." Dr. Frasier said. "For one, he keeps calling me a vampire."  
  
"Sounds like he knows what he's talking about there, Doc." Jack said. She shot him a look, and Jack worried a bit about what was going to happen the next time he was at her medical mercy.  
  
"Either way, I'd say you couldn't expect a coherent conversation out of him until tommorrow morning at the earliest."   
  
Appointments to visit the sick were made, and the debriefing continued on. 


	3. 3

Thanks for all the kind words so far. I hope you still enjoy the story when you see where it's going. And apologies for getting this out so late. I had to run a marathon last weekend, and wanted to get that race report written while details were still fresh in my mind.  
  
**********************************  
  
"Danny! What brings you here?" Jack said as the other man poked his head around the office door.  
  
"Possible progress with our mystery weapon. I talked to a friend who works at the Smithsonian. And if you ever think I'm messy, you should try to make sense of their cataloging system. The Ark of the Covenant really could be sitting in some DC sub-basement without anyone knowing about it ever. Anyways, paperwork has gone through, and Andy's crew is lending the museum at the Air Force Academy the three certified St. Istvan blades he's actually been able to track down. Officially it's for an exhibit on Balkan weapons through the ages, but they're getting shipped straight to Sam. She'll analyze, and see if the composition matches the blade that killed the PX-782 creature."  
  
"And if they do match?"  
  
"We haven't gotten that far yet. A perfectly logical terrestrial explanation would be nice."  
  
"But you know how it goes here. That's not likely to happen. And I'm glad came by for tea. Doc Frasier says we can go talk to Airman Harris in a couple hours, but only if we promise not to, and I quote 'scare her patient'. I also managed to get ahold of his full personnel file. If you know what to look for, and see a few more of the pieces, it gets a bit more interesting."  
  
"In what way?"  
  
"First, he chose the Air Force rather than facing jail time for an assault charge. I thought only the Marines did that any more. There's a note in the file about how the town he grew up in, this Sunnydale place, was a hotbed of gang activity, and the interviews from Harris' security clearance all say it was self defense. And he hasn't had an easy life. Janet said he's got some scars and evidence of old injuries that say he was the punching bag a lot when he was growing up."  
  
"I thought that join the Air Force, get away from a crummy childhood was a standard recruiting line you guys used."  
  
"It is. But the part that gets weird is that after he got out of surgery, Harris kept babbling to Janet about something called The Initiative, and that he wanted to be no part of that."  
  
"That, and vampires."  
  
"Don't think the vampires are real, but I did some checking on the rest. There was an Army program named that was based out of the University of California at Sunnydale."   
  
"I know there's an and with this. So and?"  
  
"It was on the books as a project working with behavior control and increased prison safety."   
  
"And you're getting the feeling that The Initiative had as much to do with prison safety as we do with deep space telemetry."  
  
"Give the man a crate of Turtle Wax for that right answer. And from what I heard, NID was involved with it before it got itself closed down because of too many prisoner escapes."  
  
"And Harris? How does he fit in here?"  
  
"That's the question for the prize level above the Turtle Wax. Guess we get the fun job of trying to figure out if he's NID's or one of their past victims."  
  
"Explore strange new worlds, fight bureaucratic turf wars. Yep. That's what we all signed up for."  
  
"That's the spirit. And we've got until after lunch time to figure out the game plan."  
  
***********  
  
The place was called Taiga by some because of its sweeping pine forests. Others called it the land of the midnight sun for the long summer days. But it was not spring yet, and as long as the sun stayed down for more than three quarters of the day, the being who had once been Lt. Eddie Brophy preferred to think of it as the land of the great midnight buffet.   
  
"Next village should be just over the ridge there according to the old man." Lt. John Shore, late of SG-5 said.   
  
"Think he was telling the truth about it?" Brophy asked. Spring snow was melting, and the barely there trail the two men followed through the trees and moonslights was little more than the planet's longest mud puddle at that point.  
  
"Think he was too scared not to. And it does look like he was right." They came over the ridge to see the outline of a small collection of homes, some with candles and lamps peeking out the windows. "Usual plan going in? I do love the taste of adrenaline you get when you stampede them. Fruity, and yet subtle like a fine desert wine."  
  
"Actually can we hold of on the initial pillage and death? I'm sick of being wet, sick of being cold, and sick of being covered in mud. I say we hold off on the doom and despair until after we can hit the bathhouse and have a nice long soak." Brophy let his mind drift, recalling that last trip to Vail, complete with outdoor hot tub for use apres-ski, and a certain beautiful Army captain who had shown him a grand old time apres-apres-ski. "Damn, I wish we could have gotten Susan into the Stargate program. This all would have been a lot more fun without her."   
  
"And it's looking like it's too small a place to have your bathhouse."   
  
"It figures. Guess I'm getting soft out here with the missing of reliable plumbing and all. Usual death and despair plan it is then."  
  
"Cheer up Eddie. It's going to be fun. It's always fun once you get going. And who knows. Maybe you'll find a pretty girl to take along with us for a while again. You've got to get over Susan some time."  
  
"If you say so John." Eddie sighed, and the two started to make their way down the hillside.   
  
Down the hillside, a teenaged girl named Leale sat in her parents' home, picking through a half dozen skeins of embroidery thread. She didn't particularly like having to squint at the colors through candle light. Things never seemed to look the same when you came back to the pattern in daylight. But it was spring, and lambing and planting season, and if she did not take the time to sew after dark when all the chores were done, she would never have her new dress looking as she wanted it to. She stared at the red, wondering if she had enough of it for a line of fire flowers, and if she didn't would the cloth traders come through the village before too long?   
  
The candle flickered in front of her, and she moved to rub her eyes. Suddenly, a wave of energy swept over her. She felt like she did when they watched the mudslides roll down off the mountains to the west. Some great evil thing was cascading down from above to sweep away the mountain villages. But the malicous energy was not in the mountains it was nearby and getting closer.  
  
"Pappa. I'm going to check on the goats." she called toward the sleeping loft her parents shared. She took her candle off the table, and placed it in a small lantern.   
  
"Careful going to the stable. Pathway's still slick fom the snow melt." He replied. She unlatched the door, and made her way outside. Five steps later, she heard the first of the screams.   
  
"Leale, get back inside with your mother." Her father shouted. He charged out their front door, a staff in one hand, a second lantern in the other. She started to retreat into the house, but it was almost like an invisible hand stopped her from going backwards. Instead, she found herself running just behind her father towards the screams coming from the night watchman's hut.   
  
The watchman had been attacked by two strange men who looked to be wearing the dress of the star traders. One stood behind him, twisting the watchman's arms until she heard the awful sound of bones snapping. The other stood to the side and bent the watchman's head backward. Blood began to stream down his chest, and she assumed the stranger had slit the man's throat with a hidden knife. The stranger started to, it looked like, kiss the watchman on the throat when the other one called out to him.  
  
"Looks like the dinner bell has been rung." One of the bandits said. She just then noticed that a half dozen of the village men had surrounded the two murderers.  
  
"He killed Owen." Her father yelled. "Stop the bandits!" The village men charged forward to wrestle the bandits to the ground. Or they tried to. To her amazement, the bandits were strong, too strong to be real. The town baker was the first to go down, his head striking the side of the watchman's hut hard. Next was the innkeeper's son; the first bandit snapped his neck like a corn stalk. With a growing fear, she watched her father strike back at the bandits. The staff sweep that should have downed the bandit glanced off his legs and only made him laugh. And then the bandit reached for her father's neck.  
  
"No, not Pappa!" Leale dropped her lantern and charged ahead, but it was too late by the time she had taken three steps forward. With an anger she had never felt before, she charged the bandits, swinging wildly at the first one and connecting with his left shoulder.  
  
"That hurt. That's not supposed to hurt." He said.  
  
"Too bad. I'm busy here myself." Out of the corner of her eye, Leale saw the other bandit fighting three men at the same time.  
  
"You killed him." She screamed and struck at the bandit again. Arms swung faster and faster, and she heard the bandit yelp again.  
  
"John, get her away from me and let's blow this popscicle stand." Her arms were grabbed from behind, and the other bandit pushed her hard to the ground. To her surprise, she heard the bandits bolt fast for the woods, not even making a move to try loot the houses of the village. She turned her head to one side, seeing the body of the innkeeper's son next to her. With a last little bit of energy, Leale shook as she pushed herself into a sitting position as she heard more people come to respond the watchman's alarm. Then she started to cry.  
  
********  
  
Xander was confused. He wasn't supposed to be important enough to have his own hospital room. Normal would have been just another bed in the ward that he could hear was just past the door, but then he got the feeling that there was nothing normal about this part of Cheyenne Mountain. And so, far Mulder and Scully hadn't shown up to talk to him about stompy killer blue blooded demons, the Men in Black hadn't shown up to tell him that demons didn't exist, and his only visitors had been nurses who checked his ribs, apologized for the bad hospital food, and helped him hobble to the toilet when nature called. He was also getting bored in his moments of lesser paranoia. The room had no television set, and he was left with a crumbling bunch of People magazines from 1998 that someone had left behind, and heck, even in 1998 he hadn't cared about what was happening with the cast of Friends. But the magazines somehow brought a little bit of normalcy into the room, so he read on. Happy thoughts. You weren't afraid of Ross and Rachel coming after you in the dark. He had just started to read an article on Madonna when there was a knock at the door.   
  
"Airman Harris." Two men walked through the door, one a colonel and the other a civilian in a sweater and jeans. Xander quickly straightened his back, and stuffed the magazine to one side with his left hand. He tried to bring his right hand up to salute, but his arm started to tangle in the iv line.   
  
"Sir."  
  
"At ease there. This is supposed to be an informal talk. Doc Frasier's protective of her patients, and I'm not allowed to say anything that would get your blood pressure up."  
  
"Okay, Sir."  
  
"Now I'm Col. Jack O'Neil, and this is Dr. Daniel Jackson. He's a civilian consultant on one of the projects here. I'm going to assume you're a smart kid, and have a good idea of what we want to talk about."   
  
"What happened in the hallway. I got lucky. I've gotten lucky a lot in my life." Xander said.  
  
"We'd like to know about the knife." Jackson said.   
  
"Lucille? You aren't going to bust me for that are you? I know I wasn't supposed to have her on on duty, but, um, religous reasons. I'm a pagan and stuff. " Xander said.   
  
"You called your knife Lucille?" O'Neil said.  
  
"Yeah, sounds silly, but I got her right after basic training, and I had a roommate who listened to a lot of BB King, and it kind of seemed like a good idea at the time. Excalibur just didn't quite fit since she wasn't quite bit enough, and, um, size does kind of matter, I guess." At least that got a weak smile from the other two men.   
  
"So where did you get... Lucille... from?" Jackson said.  
  
"Got her from a friend as a graduation from basic gift. He said that the blade had been blessed by some monks in Romania, and that he hoped that I never had to use her as she had been had been designed to, but that if I ever did run into something like that, it was there. And he was right." Xander said. Checking the box labeled 'neo-pagan' when the Air Force had asked for his religion was looking like a smarter move as every second passed. Not that he particularly believed what Willow did, at least any more than any other religion he'd come across, but that faith could be an excuse for explaining some things about his background that were entirely too real.  
  
"Does your friend have a name?" Jackson said.  
  
"Robert Ripper. He moved a while ago, and I lost touch with him and don't know where he is now." He had heard bits and pieces about what had happened to Ethan Rayne. He did not want to lie to the Air Force outright, but he didn't want to make it easy for the men in black to show up at the G-Man's door in merry old England. The two men exchanged glances. He thought they knew he was trying to protect someone.  
  
"Okay, let's go back in the hall if you're up to it. Why didn't you open fire with your sidearm?" O'Neil said.  
  
"I saw bullets didn't seem to work. You read about it in stories, and there's a demon coming at you, and you try one of three things: iron, silver, or wood. You've got a good chance that one of them will work. I know Lucille is silver and iron. The, um, pencil, was wood. I saw a movie once where they staked a vampire with a pair of chopsticks, so why not a pencil." A movie starring one Buffy Summers with Xander Harris in a supporting role of supplier of cashew chicken and fortune cookies.  
  
"So what would have happened if one of those things didn't work?"   
  
"Then I would have died. Like Jonah." He said softly. "Or like Jesse in high school. I stopped trying to figure out why I'm still alive a long time ago." And kept trying not to think about it. And definitely not thinking about it while talking to people who might be trying to judge his state of mind. "So what was it that almost sumo wrestled me to death anyways?" He tried to change the subject, expecting a response that the demon was classified.  
  
"We don't know what to call it. It wasn't exactly a chatty beast, and I'm just not good at figuring out what *grunt*grunt*grunt* means. That's Danny's job. And like you might expect, you don't have clearance for the whole story. Yet." The two men exchanged looks, and Xander got the feeling that he had passed some sort of test.  
  
"Yet?"  
  
"The SG project can always use people who can handle themselves when the going gets professionally weird." Jackson said.  
  
"No offense, but I ran into you people once before and I saw what happened. Can't you just get someone to change my orders back to Florida like they were supposed to be, and I promise I will forget everything I saw about weird Initiative projects and monsters creeping in hallways." And mad scientists who were trying to make super soldiers.   
  
"We don't have anything to do with the Initiative. I know you've got no reason to trust us now, and I don't blame you if you've had run-ins with NID, but we like to think we're the good guys here." O'Neil said.   
  
"And I wouldn't have signed on with the SG project, wouldn't have kept coming back to work here if I didn't think what we did here was improtant." Jackson said.   
  
"Nothing to do with the Initiative?" Xander said.  
  
"We hadn't ever heard of them until you started babbling about them to Dr. Frasier. Did some checking, and if they're the usual NID scumbags, then we wouldn't have wanted to have anything to do with them either." O'Neil said with a sigh.  
  
"I need to think about some things here." Xander said. Like it there was a way he could get out of it all. Like how the painkillers were wearing off and his ribs were hurting yet again. Like how to make sure none of his friends ever got caught up in another Oz rescue or Adam situation. Or maybe he was supposed to prevent another Adam. Darn weird lawyers. As if she had heard her name called, Dr. Frasier did show back up in his room then. She shooed the other men out, telling them that her patient had to rest, and that she was sure that they everyone had a lot to think about now.   
  
He got the feeling the doctor was in it all. He wondered just how much weird blue blood she'd seen over the years.  
  
***************  
  
"So what did you think of Airman Harris? He wasn't screaming NID plant to me."  
  
"Me either. Kind of flakey in some ways, but he dosn't panic in the field. How many people have we lost because they freeze the first time they run into something they can't understand out there? How many people would have done half as well with a lot more preparation?"   
  
"Not many. I think he could be a good addition to the Stargate project. Though I hope we can get him to trust us a bit more. Whatever happened in Sunnyvale still has him pretty spooked."  
  
"Wish we could find out the story there. But then people who don't talk about classified projects are good. We don't need another Wormhole Extreme to worry about."   
  
***************  
  
text of e-mail message-  
  
Wills-   
  
Sorry it's been a couple of days since I've been in touch. I got into a car accident a couple days ago. I'm mostly fine, just a couple of broken ribs (and how many times have I had those) and a sprained ankle. And yes, mother hen of all hens, I was wearing my seat belt, and I will try to dig out that healing potion from the 200 different boxes all my stuff's still in from the move. I'm still in Colorado, and have been told I should give up on the idea of surfing, and start to think of snowboarding instead, so I guess Florida's not going to happen right now. On the bright side, I finally got my promotion after six months of the papers getting lost in the system, so maybe I shouldn't buy the skiis just yet.   
  
Your friend,  
  
Xander  
  
or Senior Airman Harris as they say these days. Sounds suav-ay doesn't it? 


	4. 4

Next minty fresh chapter up fresh on your monitor. I'm glad someone got the Gonz/HST shout out in the last one  
  
*********************************  
  
In the morning, the village sent word to the town of Greenridge for the cantor, and Leale prepared to bury her father. Five men had died that night. Even during a plague year, a village would not lose that many people in a week. After the remaining men dug the graves, and the women washed and wrapped the bodies, the village came together in the inn for a funeral meal- simple bread and soup.   
  
Cantor Salim, the man who rode circuit serving as both priest and judge in the villages around Greenridge, rode into town late in the afternoon, bringing with him news that the bandits had attacked other villages near Northslope. Leale knew that soon enough the accusations would start; why hadn't word been sent out of the threat sooner? But for now, they were all still in shock about what had happened.   
  
An hour before dusk, they began to build the vigil fire in the clearing near the town's cemetary. First the strongest of the men stacked the first logs to serve as the base of the pyramid. Leale helped with the next layers of thinner logs. She found herself thinking that the past few months of dragging sheep all about must have built her strength since the timber seemed to barely have any weight at all. Then the elderly placed their branches at the top of the pyramid, and the children placed kindling against the base.   
  
"Let all who have gathered here build the light that will guide the dead into the afterlife." The cantor intoned, sprinkling a mix of herbs and oils on the base of the pyramid. "May the beacon be lit." He bent down, striking a match and fanning the flames of the young fire. "And may it be the guide through the dark lands of death so that all may find the pathway to the Golden Valley."  
  
"So be it." The villagers replied. The kindling burned bright, catching the larger logs afire. The cantor continued to talk, familiar words bringing a bit of comfort. Leale leaned up against her youngest brother Tobias for support. He hugged her as the first of the four chants began. We are not a worthy people, but we ask for Your mercy so that the dead may reach salvation. The bodies were placed in the ground and covered in dirt.  
  
But they were worthy, Leale wanted to scream. They had gone to protect the village, to keep the old, the young, and the sick from harm. How could you not be worthy when you gave up your life so that others, other people like her, might live instead. He died trying to protect me. She started to cry again, sobs that heaved from her gut and almost tore her heart out before they made it to her mouth. Tobias stroked her hair, mumbling wordlessly at her trying to comfort her. Tobias' wife reached over, briefly squeezing her hand. The tears continued to flow through the second and third chant. We are a weak people. It is only through Your gifts that may we be made strong.  
  
As the daylight faded, Leale sniffled and got a glimpse of her mother: brown hair askew, dark eyes rimmed with red, and leaning into her oldest brother like Leale was leaning on Tobias. But her face was hard as pottery. She was trying to be strong in front of all of them, had to be strong. Leale knew then that she had to be strong as well. Tears were for children. She wiped her nose on her sleeve, straightened her back, and did her best to stop the tears. The fourth chant. We shall accept life, its gift and its burden with a joyful heart, for those things are only Yours to grant.  
  
As the sun settled over the hillside, the first part of the vigil came to an end. Most of the villagers retreated into their homes. She talked with her family briefly; she would sit the first hour of the night, Tobias would take the next, and other siblings the rest before her mother sat that final hour before dawn. As her father's soul left this world, it seemed fitting that his wife would be the last person he would see. She would give him strength for the journey to the Golden Valley.   
  
Tucking her skirt around her legs, she took a seat near the fire. Near her, the cantor and four others, each a relative of one of the others who had died, remained by the fire taking their own places by the light. The cantor talked briefly about the bravery of the men, and how he felt that each would be welcomed into the Valley with open arms. There was some quiet talk of the lives of the dead. The tale of the innkeeper's son's disastrous attempts at making bread made her smile. Kern had been a friend of sorts, had even courted one of her sisters for a while before Alise had married elsewhere. She would miss the big lug. Gradually the conversation faded out, and each of the sitters was left alone to their thoughts.  
  
She was left with the sounds of the night: wind through the pine trees, what seemed to be a wild boar digging for roots in the distance, the calls of birds recently returned to the woods for spring. As she straightened her back she shifted her legs about, trying to keep her feet from falling asleep. She heard the boar again, sounding like it was getting closer to the village. Suddenly the sense of warning swept over her again just like it had before the attack. She looked around the cemetary, really noticing for the first time that the cantor almost stood guard between the graves and the fire. He sword was buckled around his waist, something a cantor normally only wore when proclaiming an act of justice, not one of mercy. The digging noise grew louder. To her horror, she watched the dirt start to move from the grave of the watchman Owen.  
  
"Leave the vigil now. Go home and lock the doors behind you." The cantor ordered. "Let no one into the house until dawn. The bandits have spread a Goa'uld curse to this place." He lifted the ankh away from his shirt. He seemed to think the holy symbol would protect him from the curse. On his orders, the other sitters ran for their homes. But she couldn't run, couldn't leave the cantor to die like her father had. She had seemed to hurt the bandits before. Maybe she could again.Reaching carefully to the vigil fire, she drew out a stick burning from one end.   
  
"Go back, girl." He said as she approached the moving dirt.   
  
"I can't leave you to die alone. At least my father was with friends."   
  
"I'm not going to die. The cantors have learned how to drive the cursed away." Before either could say more, a thing rose from the ground.  
  
It was Owen, but his face has been twisted into something she could not recognize as human. It was as if his face had been a candle, and someone had started to melt the wax.  
  
"Time for a meal before heading to work." he said, lunging toward the cantor.   
  
"Go from this place, Goa'uld cursed." The cantor said, holding the ankh straight forward until it almost touched Owen.   
  
"No. So hungry." But to her amazement, Owen stopped inches from the cantor. The cursed one could not get any closer to the cantor's blessed ankh.  
  
"You will go from this place. So say I as I speak as the mouthpiece of the Gods!" He ordered Owen.  
  
"Can't get you, so maybe the girl instead. She looks tasty." Owen charged as her impossibly quickly. She swung the torch at him, connecting fire to his shoulder.   
  
"Hurts! Hurts!" he screamed as the flame spread over his body.   
  
"Again girl. Hit him with the flame again." She heard the cantor yell as she struck Owen with the torch near his knees. To her amazement Owen cuntinued to burn like the driest kindling. She waved her torch at the man, ready to strike at him a third time. But it was not necessary. Still screaming, he had fallen to the ground, burning, burning, burning.   
  
Until nothing but dust was left. Leale put her torch back into the vigil fire, then sunk down to her knees. She leaned forward, emptying her stomach onto the damp ground. She felt the cantor kneel by her, and pull her hair back so she would not soil it.  
  
"It's over. The cursed one is gone." He said, rubbing on her back to steady her as she sat back on her heels.   
  
"Owen is gone. But the others? The bandits that brought the curse are still in the forest." she said.   
  
"That is what the cantors are fighting now. They are strong, and it may seem as though we are weak, but the Gods must test our people now and then." he said. "Though in my heart, I do wish a bit that I lived during a time with slightly fewer tests."  
  
******************  
  
It was Euchre Night at Casa Rosenberg. Xander grinned as he shuffled the deck of cards and dealt them out. It wasn't very often that he could say he was better at something than one Slayer was, much less two of them. But when he partnered up with Willow for euchre, well they had been playing as partners ever since the seventh grade when Mrs. Kozloski had gotten eaten by a vampire and the school had just told them to treat the last eight weeks of her English class as a study hall. Someone had brought in a deck of cards, someone else taught a card game they had picked up in Michigan, and before long, Xander and Willow were euchre champs of Sunnydale Middle School.   
  
"Ready to go, Buffy?" Xander asked. He rhythmically tapped his cards, letting Willow know he had two jacks and an ace.  
  
"Almost. Any more kettle corn over there, Kendra?"   
  
"Sorry." Kendra looked down at a now empty bag. "It's the first time I've gotten to eat it, and I didn't realize that I was going through the bag so quickly."   
  
"Mean Watcher. I know they didn't let you do a lot of things that normal girls did, but to deprive you of kettle corn, heck, even microwave popcorn is criminal." Willow said. She looked at her cards, and rested her chin on her hand. Bad hand this time she signaled as she tapped two fingers against her cheek bone.  
  
"They probably did not want me to lose my fighting figure." Kendra said.   
  
"Well it's not like popcorn has that many calories in it. Hearts are trump it is." Buffy said, looking at what had been dealt and tossing a card on the table. The rest of the group followed, adding their own cards to a growing pile. "And a Slayer's got to eat to keep up her strength."  
  
"Slayer's gotta drink too." Faith said, suddenly appearing in Kendra's place at the table. She reached down into a brown paper bag beside her chair. "Anyone else want a beer? None of that awful Lite stuff either. Only the real will do." She set a Bud on the table and picked up Kendra's cards.   
  
"No thanks." The three Scoobies chorused.   
  
"You sure? There's extra. I figured better to bring my own than to try to crash your parents' liqour cabinet again. Don't need you getting grounded because of me. What's trump?"  
  
"Spades." Willow said, putting a card on the table. A few more hands were played, and Xander and Willow scored another point. Xander scooped up all the cards on the table, stacked them and passed the deck to Faith.   
  
"Your deal." Except it wasn't Faith any more. A thin girl in a red floral dress now sat in the fourth chair. Olive skin, brown hair and eyes, she was someone he had never seen before. She reached over to the cards, shuffled the deck and then paused.   
  
"I'm sorry, I don't know the game yet. How many cards do I deal out now?"   
  
Xander opened his mouth to reply.  
  
And the alarm clock jolted him away and awake.   
  
Xander hit the off button, a guy could only take so much Matchbox 20 before 6:00 a.m. after all, grabbed for his crutches, and hobbled into the kitchen of his new apartment. The place was small. He could barely turn around in the kitchen with his crutches as he fumbled a bottle of Mountain Dew out of the avacado-colored fridge. But the Mountain Pines apartment complex was clean, safe, and cheap enough that he could stash away more than a hundred dollars in the bank every month from his housing allowance on top of his pay. Needless to say, it was a popular place for single enlisted to live. Which made it easy for him to hitch rides back to Cheyenne Mountain until his ankle healed up enough for him to drive.   
  
He poured himself a glass of the Dew, then grabbed a couple of sausage biscuits out of the freezer. As he waited for them to heat to greasy goodness temperature in the microwave, he reached into the cupboard, and pulled out a bottle of Willow's healing and painkilling potion, adding a couple of drops of it to his soda. Whatever she put in it was good stuff, even better than the percocet and no side effects. Eat, drink, sponge off in the bathroom sink in order to keep assorted bandages from coming unstuck, dress, and before long, he was catching his ride to his new shiny job. Where it seemed that two different and opposing sets of Powers That Be both wanted him to be their butt monkey.   
  
He only had to ask two different people the way to the right elevator that took him deep into the lower intestines of the Mountain. Three checkpoints later, he found himself approaching a small crowd at the elevator doors. They all seemed to know each other. A burly chief master sergeant gave him the eyeball as he got closer to the doors.  
  
"Harris? You the one who dealt with the problem in 3 Blue Charlie?"  
  
"Um, yes Sir."  
  
"Good job there, boy. We need people like you on the teams." Other people in the group mumbled agreements. Weird to be getting compliments from the people who were allegedly the cool kids in town.   
  
"The gossip mill sure was flying after that." A man whose uniform identified him as SSgt. Singletary said.   
  
"Gossip mill, sir?" The elevator arrived, and the group piled inside.  
  
"Better believe it. Of course you can't tell your wife topside what's going on, but below ground, it seems like everyone knows everyone else's business here."   
  
"Floors, y'all?" someone in the corner asked. Numbers were rattled off, Xander adding his nineteen to the mix. People got off the elevator at each level amid a steady stream of small talk. By the time he made it off onto his floor, only a few people remained on the elevator. He hopped out of the elevator, glad that he was supposed to be off the crutches soon. Hard to live up to one's reputation if you only had one good leg. He looked around, catching the eye of a woman who looked to be waiting for him.  
  
"Airman Harris?" She waved at him rather than trying to shake his hand. Probably figured she didn't want to put him off balance. "Hi, I'm Emily Ramsey with Graphic Services. Sounds like you get to be my assistant until you're back on your feet. Um I mean both of your feet heal up. Or your ankle I mean."   
  
"That's me." She was a middle aged civilian- dark hair cut in a bob and dressed in the women's civilian casual uniform of khaki pants, colorful, but not too colorful sweater, and her government id around her neck on a lanyard that looked like it had been one of her childrens' summer camp projects. Xander briefly wished he had gotten to go to summer camp when he was a kid. She started to slowly head down the corridor, and Xander followed.  
  
"Great. I talked to personnel. The next Stargate orientation session isn't until next week. And you're lucky it's so soon. Normally they can only get everyone back from the field for one of those maybe once every two months. Right now the plan is to have you working in my office this week, do orientation and then back to my office until you get medical clearance for the fun stuff. Men's room is here."  
  
"That's definitely good to know."   
  
"Don't worry. There are maps of this place. I make the maps, and will even lend you out one for in-house use. Foreign Cultures Lab is here." She waved to his left. "If you need me, and I'm not in my office, there's a decent chance I'm here." Xander took a little bit of heart at hearing the Stargate project was actually interested in demonic cultures. The Initiative hadn't seemed interested in cultures, only tissue samples and freaky stuff. "Couple more labs through here. Electronics is to your right. If you ever need a small appliance repaired, Ed there fixes them on the side when he isn't entirely swamped. He resurrected my Dualit toaster last year. But then last year was probably the last time things weren't so busy and crazy."  
  
"Got it, ma'am. Does he fix coffee makers too? Mine broke somewhere on the trip up here." Day one of the new top secret job, and he was talking kitchen gadgets. Somehow it didn't seem to fit in with what was supposed to be the most exciting project in the Air Force.   
  
"And here we go: Graphic Services, which serves as one of the many places down here you get to spend time until you get off the injured reserve list." Emily opened the door to what looked like an ordinary computer lab. The room contained a half dozen machines, two giant printers, and a bunch of filing cabinets and boxes. Giant poster-sized prints of what looked like Egypt covered the Air Force beige walls. "My office is through the other door there. If you want to pack in a lunch, I've got a fridge and small nuker in my office you can use. I'd recommend that since the food really is terrible here."  
  
"I might have to do that." Not that he was a picky eater. He suspected that he was one of the few people out there who had considered the food in basic training an improvement over his childhood eating habits.  
  
"And pick a machine, any machine." Xander sat down in front of a computer, propping his crutches against the wall. She pulled up a chair next to him. "Your file said you took a couple of computer classes last year."  
  
"Yes, ma'am. I got stuck spending a summer TDY in New Mexico- hundred and ten in the shade. After a while, you start thinking please, please, please let me find a job that lets me stay in the air conditioning even if the special forces dudes don't think it's a manly he-man career path. " Emily chuckled.   
  
"Good. Makes picking up this easier for you then. What we're doing here is building a photo database. These days, it's all digital cameras, but in the early part of the project, everything was still on film. So you get to help make it all digital." She opened up a box labeled Argos, took the first picture from the stack, and walked him through the scan, Photoshop, and enter in the database process. Wet, lather, rinse, repeat. "... and if you get any pictures that have objects- walls, stones, gates, whatever- that have writing on them, enlarge them as much as you can, run the ocr, that's optical character recognition, software over the picture, save it again, and enter it in the second database..." She walked him through the process a couple more times. "And it looks like you're ready to roll. I'll be back in my office. Yell if you've got any questions."  
  
"Yes, ma'am." It was looking like he was facing a very boring two to three weeks until his ribs healed enough for him to return to active duty. But then boredom was kind of underrated in his book. He had never felt like 'gee I'm bored' when he was getting attacked by vampires in a Sunnydale cemetary, and from what the Powers That Be seemed to be implying once he was healed, it would be a longtime before he could enjoy the whole boredom thing again. 


	5. 5

The line of cars inched forward slowly. Xander shifted a bit in his seat as he fumbled with the radio trying to set the presets for any decent Colorado Springs radio stations. Not that he wanted to be reminded that he had a job where he had to be on the road long before the morning shows came on just so he could make it through security and into the office by what was supposed to be starting time. Willow's potion hadn't kicked in for the day yet. His ankle, now healed enough that he only had a brace for it instead of the crutches, ached every time he hit the gas, and his ribs twinged every time he hit the brakes and his chest bumped up against the seat belt. In short, he was feeling cranky.  
  
But by making it to work on time today, he was finally supposed to be getting the answers to his five zillion unanswered questions. After the cable guy had hooked up his modem, he had tried searching the internet for information about Stargate, but all that turned up were 18,271 entries about a long running anime program and Japanese role-playing game. He had tried to ask a few guarded questions of Emily Ramsey, who would only say that she didn't understand the details of Stargate herself, and that he should wait and direct the questions to the experts. He couldn't talk to what was becomming his usual 1300 mess hall table. Only one of them was with the SG project. The rest were spread out among a half dozen different projects within the Mountain, so the default topic of conversation ended up being SEC Football. He was starting to pick up on the fringes of the SG project gossip mill, but so far the news of two births, someone's kid getting into Harvard, and a tirade about the bitchiness about someone named Anise did not seem to explain much. And then there were the stories he kept reading from the pictures he scanned...  
  
Sunnydale High School Library   
  
several years before  
  
"So you two are going to insist on continual involvement in the Slayer's life and duty?" Mr. Giles said.  
  
"Consider us the Three Amigos." Xander said.   
  
"We want to help Buffy. She saved our lives. We can't leave her to face the vampires all alone." Willow said.   
  
"And if I ask you to not interfere, you're going to say 'no'?" He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes.  
  
"Yes." Willow and Xander said.  
  
"Very well then. It's unconventional, but if you're going to interfere, you might as well be useful. Now go stand in the empty space over there." He waved toward the center of the room. Xander and Willow stepped where directed as Giles grabbed a chair, dragging it between two of the stacks. "Good, you're perfect there." They watched as Giles carefully stood atop the chair and started to fumble at something on the ceiling.  
  
"Um, what are you doing?" Willow said.  
  
"What it looks like, I'm disconnecting the smoke detector for a bit. It's too bloody sensitive for this. There." He sounded satisfied as he made one last yank, then hopped off the chair. "Don't move. I just need a few things from my office." They froze as instructed. A few minutes later, he returned from the office with a few objects on a tea tray.   
  
"For now, I'm going to assume that you will be helping with research. Here each of you hold one." He handed them turquoise spheres that looked like Xander's mom's bath salts. "And for the suject matter involved, very little of it is written in any form of English at all. Willow, take one step closer to Xander, please." Giles drew a large chalk circle around the two students. "Much less what passes for American English in this day and age." He picked up a compass, checked which direction was north, and the placed four candles around the circle on what seemed to be compass points. "So if you're going to be useful, we need to give you two the ability to read and understand the languages most of the vampire and demon related reference materials are written in. It's not fully comprehensive, just some of the basics, old English, Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, a couple of the major dialects from the Library of Alexandria."  
  
"I thought that the Library got destroyed." Willow said.   
  
"Not before the important books and scrolls got moved from there. Now quiet until I'm through. If I'm distracted and the spell goes wrong, it could damage the language centers of your brains." Giles lit the candles, sprinkled a powder around the circle, then began to softly chant in a language that sounded like what Xander thought was Latin. The time seemed to drag on as Gile's chanting continued. What must have been minutes but seemed like hours later, Giles cried out "So do I will it!" and tossed one last pinch of the powder into the north candle's flame. As the flame shot up from the powder, Xander felt the sphere dissolve into him palm- kind of slippery like dish soap. Meanwhile, the library was starting to smell like the locker room at Sunnydale Middle School midway through the janitors' strike.  
  
"I'm finished now. Pick a volume from the table, and have a look through it." Giles said as he put out the candles and rubbed out the chalk circle. Xander gingerly stepped over the line of the circle and picked a book from the pile.  
  
"Let me tell you then, reader, of the species that will work to destroy by fire." He read aloud. "First and most powerful of them all are the..."  
  
****  
  
*Honk*   
  
The car behind him woke Xander from his daydream, and he edged his jeep another thirty feet forward in the traffic jam. The stories that he could read from the pictures seemed to keep talking about the same group of demons. No matter whether the pictures came from a tropical jungle or something that looked like Greenland, same Bat Story, same Bat Channel, same frustratingly vague warnings about a Big Nasty Evil that he suspected was different from what he had killed in the corridor.   
  
The rest of trip into work seemed to drag on, but he actually ended up making it into Norad with time to spare. He decided to take the time to head down to Graphic Services before getting to the briefing room. Breakfast had not been quite enough food, and he wanted to grab a beef jerky to keep his stomach from growling too loudly just as an improtant someone got up to speak.  
  
"Hey Harris. Glad you're here." Emily said as he walked in the door.   
  
"Just stopping in for something to eat."  
  
"Darn, and I thought it was my charming personality and all. Anyways, Dr. Jackson left a box for you over there." She waved in the direction of a table of work stations. "I'd stop and talk, but I've got a giant pile of raw films I've got to have turned into a presentation by 14:00."   
  
"Go edit something that would make George Lucas proud." He said, heading toward the box. Simple brown paper. It opened to reveal a note on top of Lucille on top of a new sheath for her. Xander unfolded the note.  
  
"Figured you'd want this back. The Air Force is still curious about the metal used in it, but ended up ordering a series of their own blades from the monks of St. Istvan. Next time you see your friend that gave you your knife, tell him thanks. The General is still complaining about the price quote the Brothers gave us. See you later on today- Daniel Jackson"  
  
***********  
  
"Wasn't it SG-2's turn to give the Welcome to Oz speech?" Jack said.  
  
"Busy doing geological work on P8K-766" Daniel said.  
  
"SG-5?"   
  
"On loan to the Tok'ra" Teal'c said.   
  
"SG-16?" Jack sighed. "I know. They're not available either."  
  
"Cheer up sir." Carter said. "This group sound promising. Daniel sounded really excited to pry Seth and Katherine Ingrham away from the Defense Languages Institute. Alexander Harris seems to have the kind of reflexes we're always looking for. And the recommendations we got for Tyler Margolis and Kyle Pender were some of the most positive ones I've seen come from AFSOC."  
  
"Yeah." Jack glanced down at his watch. "Time to go. I've got the dog. You all don't forget to bring the pony." 


	6. 6

For those of you playing along at home, the role of Xander Harris will now be played by... cancel that. For those of you playing along at home, consider the story as Buffy gone AU at the end of season 4. Dawn never was, and Joyce and Tara still are.   
  
And the kind words really are appreciated. Usually, I'm lucky if I get five or so responses to a story. This many, wow! I'm glad you're all reading and enjoying.   
  
*********************  
  
Briefing Room 3 always reminded Jack of a basement rec room from the walls' wood paneling and damp-seeming concrete floors to the bad lighting and scruffed up furniture. All it needed was a wet bar in one corner and a tv with bad reception showing a Blackhawks or North Stars game in the other. And maybe a couple bags of pretzels for the mix of the Air Force's alleged best and brightest gathered within. He glanced through the window in the briefing room's door.  
  
"Twenty two people. Curiousity got them all here right on time. Ready?" Carter, Daniel, and Teal'c nodded. He walked into the room amid murmurings and scraping chairs as people rose to salute.   
  
"At ease, and have a seat everyone." He paused a moment as chairs scraped concrete again. "Welcome to Stargate Command Training Class Number 17. I am Colonel Jack O'Neill. To my left is civilian consultant Dr. Daniel Jackson. To my right are Major Samantha Carter, and civilian consultant Teal'C. We make up the SG-1 team. Consider yourselves unlucky that you drew us to supervise your training. Now I'm sure most of you think you're good. You are here after recieving the highest possible recommendations and you seem to have unique skills that would be useful to the Stargate project. But what we're doing here will challenge you is ways that most of you couldn't imagine.   
  
Your first three days here will be a general orientation session. After that, you will be split into two groups. The seven of you who came here for administrative and support positions will have an additional seven days of training designed to teach you your roles in maintaining the integrity of the Stargate facility. The rest of you slotted for field work or base protection duty will have an additional month of training where you will encounter a variety of real worlds scenarios and will be assessed based on your reactions in those scenarios. We've usually had about an 85% pass rate for field training. That may sound high, but remember the people who washed out were just as good as you are on paper. Best of luck to you all. If you make it, you've got one of the best, most interesting jobs in the galaxy. Now for some technical background on the Stargates, I'll turn things over to Major Carter." He stepped away from the podium.  
  
"Thanks. I could tell you that a Stargate is a device that creates artifical wormholes. I could say that when you have two Stargates, you can create a wormhole that allows you to travel between those two Stargates, even if they are on two different planets. I could tell you a hundred different details about each Stargate. But we have discovered that it's better to show you the Stargate early on because then you have an easier time believing us when we tell you things. So grab your coats. We're all going on a short field trip." Sam smiled. " If you will follow me, first stop will be the armory, and then we will head to Level 28 where the fun begins."   
  
Cutting off any opporutnity for questions, Sam left the podium and briskly walked out the Briefing Room 3 door, the rest of SG-1 herding the trainees through behind her. The training class staggered up to follow the team, talk buzzing all around. But the four memeber of SG-1 remained silent. The class assessment had begun the moment Sam stepped away from the podium; SG-1 wanted to see how the trainees would react to new situations when they had been given the most minimal of background material. Three full elevators and a short walk later, the group arrived in the armory.   
  
"Now this is a training run. We don't expect any problems." O'Neill said as rifles and kits were passed out to the trainees. "But one thing you can never do at SGC is take for granted that there won't be any problems. Relax on the job, and you could end up dead or wishing you were dead." That drew looks from the trainees, but no questions. By that point, they had picked up that there would not be answers just yet from SG-1. A few minutes later, the outfitted group made its way to the gate room.  
  
"Sergeant Davis, are we set to go to Kinve?" O'Neill asked to tech in the control room.  
  
"Teams in the field know that we're going to be active from here for the next thirty minutes with the exercise." Davis replied.   
  
"Time to start the tour then.This is a Stargate." Jack said. As Davis sent the Gate spinning, Jack watched the faces of the trainees. Most of them tried to maintain stony faces, but the curiousity and excitement leaked through. The civilian astrophysicist, Eric MacInnis, didn't even try to conceal his excitement. Airman Harris managed to look slightly bored. Jack made a mental note to never play poker with him.  
  
"Chevron 6 encoded. And Chevron 7 locked!"   
  
"This is a wormhole generated by the Stargate. On the other side is a planet called Kinve. They are a friendly trade partner. We send them steel and iron, and they send us plant samples for biomedical research, and let us run light training exercises on their world. Just don't trample on Grandma Khorezza's flower beds. When she's angry, she makes me seem nice. We're going to go and just have a quick walk around to give you a brief feeling for Gate travel, and then come back here in time for lunch. SG-1 will go through the Gate first, then the Airman in the corner there will send you through in groups of three or four in two minute intervals. Feeling cold and disorientated is normal after you go through the Gate. If you have any questions, you can ask them on Kinve." He nodded at the rest of his team, and they walked through the Gate together.  
  
"You doing okay there?" Xander asked the civilian hyperventilating next to him.   
  
"Yeah, I guess. I mean I do work on wormhole theory. Theory in a nice dusty office in an ivy covered building. Not actual real life giant blue wormhole twenty feet in front of me. And I knew going in that it was a military contract, and I've got nothing against guns, but I've never actually held one before, and the little voice in my head keeps saying 'You'll shoot your eye out' and that's not good."   
  
"Don't worry. Safety is right there." Xander pointed at correct point on the rifle. "Keep it that way, and you won't have to worry about it getting all Christmas Story. If for some reason, things do go bad on the other side of that wormhole thingy, run like hell is a perfectly good way of dealing with it." That drew a couple of Rambo death glares from the special ops-looking guys in the room. "Sir he's not a fighter yet. Better to have him out of the line of fire so he's not likely to get in the way of the fighters, or get himself killed or taken hostage. And running to get reinforcements can be a pretty smart move. Airman Xander Harris, by the way." he offered a hand to the other man.  
  
"Eric MacInnis. Finished up my PhD in astrophysics at Yale last month, and his is looking like it's going to be a lot more interesting than that teaching job offer from Southwest Missouri State." Hands were shaken.   
  
"Don't suppose you could explain to me just what a wormhole is? And use small words. Very small words for my very small brain."   
  
"I'm actually pretty good at that. Used to pay the bills in undergrad working as a science tutor for some of the guys on the hockey team. A wormhole is..."  
  
"Harris, MacInnis, and Doherty, you're up. Step through the Stargate when ready." Xander, Eric, and an Asian captain walked up to the Gate.   
  
"Just walk right through?" Xander said.   
  
"Walk right through." the Airman replied.   
  
Xander stepped into the blue. His brain registered the cold instantly, and a bit of tingling. It reminded him of getting hit with a glancing blow from the Staff of Erihomias. He felt his feet sink into muddy ground, took a couple steps, and the old Scooby reflexes kicked in. Pivoting in the mud, he swung his body around looking for possible bad guys. Instead, he saw the other Stargate, a grassy hillside on one side, the SG-1 team, and then a copse of trees to the other side. He heard the others come through the gate behind him.   
  
"Sirs, you okay there?" Eric looked slightly chilled, but was beaming like Willow would after she'd fixed a particularly bad bug in a program code. Captain Doherty, on the other hand, leaned against the stone of the Gate tossing his cookies. Make that tossing up his scrambled eggs.  
  
"Never been better."  
  
"I'll be fine, Airman."   
  
Satisfied that those two were stable, he looked around again. Neither the grass in the field nor the trees looked particularly different. Everything was the right shape. The colors were right. The tree-looking trees were green, the grass was yellowish green, and the sky was blue. If it weren't for the two suns just off the southern horizon, the place could be Washington state. Suddenly, fierce chittering errupted from the tree. Xander looked over to see a small furry creature that looked like a cross between a squirrel and a chipmunk preparing to hold its ground on the tree branch. As the animal danced along the branch, Xander began to laugh.  
  
"Harris?" Dr. Jackson said.  
  
"Fearsome alien life form, sir. I think it built a nest too close too close to the Stargate."   
  
"Careful there." Eric said. "It could be a type of killer rabbit." At the word rabbit, the laughter drained out of Xander. He felt the eyes of the others hone in on him because of the sudden mood change.  
  
"Um, I had an ex-girlfriend who was into Monty Python. Strange, strange memories with her." He tried to recover.   
  
"How about a killer prarie dog then?" Eric said as the last group came through the Gate.   
  
"Killer prarie dog it is. And there probably things that small out there that are lots of trouble, even if that is their actual size."   
  
"Okay, campers gather round here."O'Neill said. "That was a Stargate. As Major Carter said, have one Stargate, and you can travel between hundreds, if not thousands of different Stargates. The stone pillar to the right of the Stargate is a Dial-Home Device. Think of it as one of the old style rotary telephones. Dial the right number, and it will create a wormhole that will take you back to Earth or on to many other places. The downside is that others can try to dial up Earth. Some of those others are decidedly hostile to humans. So Cheyenne Mountain has taken precautions. There is an iris, think of it as a protective cover, that is kept in front of the Cheyenne Mountain Stargate at almost all times. When the iris is in place, anything or any person that goes through the Earth Gate will hit the iris and be destroyed.   
  
Now you were issued a device that loks like a tv remote control. Take it out. This is your G.D.O.- short for garage door opener. Before you arrived at Cheyenne Mountain, you were given a code to memorize. That was your iris code, so I hope you all memorized it as ordered. Stand next to the D.H.D. after the Gate has been activated, enter the iris code into your G.D.O. and it will send a radio signal back to Stargate Command that will open the iris up so you can return to Earth safety. If you fail to use your G.D.O. to open the iris before going through the Gate, there won't be enough left of your body for an open casket funeral. Got that?" There was a mumbled chorus of "yes, sirs."   
  
"Now we're going to spend some time talking about off-world protocols. First of all..."  
  
*********  
  
"Cantor Salim, approach now and speak with an honest heart. Truly spoken words have nothing to fear from us." Salim rose from his seat to face the assembled College of Vizcars, the leaders of Taiga for both religous and ordinary matters.   
  
"I am honored that one such as I has been called to your presence." He said, reciting the proper words as he bowed before the College.   
  
"The College thanks you for coming today." First Scholar Malek said as he finished the formalities. "We intend for this to be as brief as possible for you. The Greenridge district was severely undermanned even before the Goa'uld cursed started to appear. It would please the College for you to tell us of all your interactions with the cursed."   
  
Salim took a deep breath then began to talk. First, reminders to the College of the arrival of the offworlders who claimed to fight the Goa'uld, and the treaty negotiations that had been interrupted when two of the offworlders had gone missing. Then, after the offworlders had gone back through the Stargate the missing men had reappeared. Not only had they gone on a destructive spree in the villages around Greenridge, killing many of the villagers, but a curse had been spread so that the bodies of some of those killed had come back to life.   
  
"So how do we cure the Goa'uld curse?" Malek asked.  
  
"We hoped the Scholars of the College would offer us guidance in that matter. We know that the symbols of faith hold the cursed at bay. We know that blessed fire will destroy the bodies of the cursed. I watched a girl in the village of Seventh Tree set fire to one and destroyed him after she struck him with a torch from the funeral vigil fire. But for all we know, that only gives us more questions. " Salim said.  
  
"First thing we should do is bury the Stargate." First Cantor Darvil said. "The curse came through the Stargate. If we bury it, we won't have to worry about something else going through."   
  
"Not just yet." First Healer Kelene said. "The Americans seemed very distressed that their soldiers had gone missing. I think they were geniunely wanting to help and trade with us. They showed us how to make their disease-killing tinctures, their antibiotics. In the places where we have been able to distribute those tinctures, the number of child deaths from the usual diseases is a fifth of what it normally is. How many other things can they teach us that would make life better for all Taigans? If we bury the Stargate, those chances will not come again."  
  
"At the very least, let us send more men to guard the Stargate." Darvil said.   
  
"And any that pass through must show that they are not Goa'uld cursed by making them supplicate themselves before the ankh." Malek said.   
  
"Honored ones, how shall I tell the towns and villages to protect themselves?" Salim asked.  
  
"This is a plague." Kelene said. "Though a plague of the body, and not of the soul. Until we drive the curse from Taiga, I order all bodies burned after the funeral vigil is completed. So shall it be." Salim wished that the soul did leave the body at the moment of death as the American Daniel Jackson had said his people believed. If that was the case, it would have been so easy then to keep the cursed from rising again. But that time was not until dawn, and to set fire to a body while the soul was still inside it would destroy the soul and keep it from ever reaching the Golden Valley. And the man who prevented another from reaching the Golden Valley damned himself as well.  
  
"And these are the precautions that every village shall take." Darvil said. "Let there be men set to guard at each funeral vigil. And each person make their way to their homes at sunset, for it has been said the cursed fear the light and lurk in shadows and darkness. So shall it be." As the discussion continued, the College debated other anctions to take to fight the curse. Finally, Salim was given permission to leave, and instructions that he was not to set out to return to Greenridge until first light the next morning.  
  
*********  
  
text of e-mail message:  
  
Wills  
  
Glad to hear things are going so well with you and Tara. Work might make it tough to get up to Massachusetts for the next month or so if that's when you're planning the ceremony. It's crazy here right now. I find myself surrounded by special ops types, and they're good guys, but I just don't relate well to them. No I do not want to share tales of how cool it was to be in the jungle, kill a rattlesnake or large anaconda, and then make sushi out of it. And never trust a special ops guy's opinions on food. They've eaten so much snake sushi that Carl's and the base cafeteria taste good.  
  
Honored to be your best man if you're supposed to have a best man for those things,  
  
Xander 


	7. 7

(Thanks for the correction note, Unicorn. Hopefully that bit of chapter 6 works better now)  
  
"Quit your sulking, Eddie and look all around you. The natives are not at all restless. Since we left the countryside and came to the booming metropolis of Four Rivers, we've been able to vamp the pretty ones and the useful ones, kill all the rest, and hey, since they're hookers and theives, no one seems to mind too much." Lt. John Shore said.   
  
"Yeah, yeah take the page right out of Jack the Ripper's playbook, and it seems to go well enough." Lt. Eddie Brophy replied. "But Jack, maybe Jack wouldn't have been such a bad boy if only he'd had the chance to play a couple hundred hours of Quake or Halo. I miss Halo." He sighed and looked at the warehouse basement that served as their temporary lair.   
  
"But why do you need Halo the video game when you can go walk upstairs, and play the live action version of it down by the docks any night of the week?"   
  
"It's not just Halo, it's, well it's this." Brophy waved at the lantern sitting on a dusty table.  
  
"What, bad native craftsmanship?"   
  
"No, nothing wrong with how it's made. It's just going to get really old waiting around a hundred years until the tasty natives manage to get around to inventing light bulbs. If we're lucky, we might get radio about the same time. Television, how much longer until they get around to television? I want my MTV."  
  
"Stay with the long term plan, Eddie. We start with the hookers and pick-pockets. A couple years, and we have control of the whole underside of Four Rivers. Call it the vampire mafia. Damn good unlife here right now, and it's only going to get better."   
  
"Yeah. Maybe that's what you want. But that's not what I want here. Screw Four Rivers and Taiga. I'm going to Disneyworld." Eddie Brophy walked out of the basement with a plan to keep walking until daylight drove him into the shadows.  
  
*************************  
  
"The white zone is for loading and unloading of passengers only. There is no stopping in a red zone."   
  
"The red zone is for loading and unloading of passengers only. There is no stopping in a white zone."   
  
"Now you don't be telling me which zone is for loading and unloading."  
  
Xander found himself walking through Frankfort Airport amid a rush of dour-faced Germans and pouting Frenchmen looking like they were heading off on hoilday. The crowd swarmed all around him, carrying him down the long terminal hallway.   
  
"We would now like to announce the first call for boarding on flight 768 to Pylea. If you are seated in first class or have tetra-platinum status or are traveling with small children or tadpoles, you are now free to board the plane. Please keep in mind that today's flight is a non-smoking flight. We do ask that those of you who enjoy tobacco, or have a tendency toward spontaneous combustion respect that. Thank you for flying with us today!"   
  
At those words, Xander slammed to a stop. As he looked around, the faces on the Germans and Frenchmen changed. He was surrounded by demons; demons of every type he had ever seen on Earth and some he had never seen before. As he dropped his carry on, he groped to the sheath for Lucille, but she wasn't there. With all he'd been through, airport security was going to be the death of him. He looked around for something to use to make his last stand with, even if it only was a fake potted plant.   
  
"Pssst, Xander. Over here!" He looked toward a bank of pay phones to see Vikkii waving at him. This time, the sweater was hunter green with chickens on it. Shoulders still tensed, he bolted toward the phones.  
  
"Vikkii, what's going on now?" he asked.   
  
"You're seeing Earth for what it really is: a natural transit point for far, far too many different things. Don't worry. They're all too busy trying to get where they're going that they aren't even noticing you. Well most of them at least." Vikkii said.   
  
"Natural transit point?"   
  
"That's what I said. Now we need to go for a walk. There's someone who wants to talk to you, and he doesn't like having to talk over Air Haklar. That group makes football hooligans seem like those traveling groups of singing nuns." Vikkii led him through a twist of creatures with horns, hooves, strange eyes, and yellow slimey stuff. Xander wondered briefly how much the airport had to spend every year on carpet cleaning for the slime.   
  
"And here we are." Vikkii stood outside of Dr. Mueller's Sex Shop. "And I'm about to get accused of corrupting today's youth, even though that's the Opposition's job. Through the rabbit hole we go." She squared her shoulders and walked into the shop. Xander followed her in. He got a glimpse of a naked leg, and a rack of videos, and then...  
  
He found himself standing in the 9th grade science lab at Sunnydale High School.   
  
"Glad you could make it today, Xander Harris." Principal Flutie smiled at him from the lectern.   
  
"So I'm like dead then. And I take it I didn't do too well since the afterlife seems crappy."   
  
"No, you're not dead, Xander." Vikkii said. "And I told you it gets way too hard for them when you take the image of the deceased."   
  
"Sorry about that. Want me to change it?" The being that looked like a man asked.   
  
"No that's okay. It's just that in my experience, back from the dead tends to mean some bad, bad things. I mean beyond Eyes Wide Shut level of bad. If you aren't really him, I can deal."  
  
"Okay. Feel free to have a seat. This may take a bit." Xander settled into one of the always uncomfortable lab chairs.   
  
"Ready."   
  
"Now as Vikkii said, Earth is a natural transit point. Demons, ancient alien astronauts you name it, we've seen it. Nothing we can do could stop it from being a transit point. Think of it as trying to plug a leaky bucket only to discover that by plugging it, you cause even more leaks to form. We let some of the demonus minor dimensions form links to Earth because it's either that, or let the demonus major start making their way through this universe."  
  
"So you're telling me that everything we fought back in Sunnydale was some sort of wee baby demon? They came close to ending the world plenty of times."   
  
"And the demonus major could destroy an entire solar system with a thought just because they thought the hue of the Indian Ocean wasn't quite the right color blue." Vikkii said. "We were able to restrict the demons on Earth to those that humanity had at least a remote chance of holding their own against."  
  
"So why are you telling me this? Why the weird Slayer dreams? I'm just a guy who keeps stumbling into way too much demonic badness."  
  
"Why did the Americans work through third parties in Nicaragua and Angola during the Cold War?" not-Flutie said.  
  
"Huh?" Xander said.  
  
"You need to remember he's the product of a typical American high school. When they study U.S. history, they're usually just getting to World War II by the end of the school year. If they're lucky, they'll get to Korea, but never further than that." Vikkii said.   
  
"When we have problems, we normally need to work through the humans, not just go stomping around on our own. If we act overtly, it lets The Opposition act overtly as well. And if we did get into a fight with the Opposition on Earth, then it would be Hiroshima to the nth degree."  
  
"So you want me to go fight the Goa'uld?"  
  
"Not necessarily. What we need is for you to watch the Stargate. When the Ancients built Stargates on Earth, there was an agreement between us and them that they would keep their travel to this universe only, and would not try to use the Stargate to access the other dimenstions that could be reached from Earth. We were all relieved when the Ancients left, and the Stargates were forgotten here." not-Flutie said.   
  
"Then the Goa'uld came." Vikkii continued. "At first, they did not mix with the demons had come to Earth. But over time, some of the Goa'uld unfortunately became less cautious of the demons, even went so far as to propose treaties with them. The very last treaty proposed would have allowed the vampire lords access to the Stargates, and the Goa'uld access to a handful of dimensional portals."  
  
"Fortunately, just before the treaty was set into papyrus, the Slayer lead a successful revolt against the most powerful vampire lords in her day. Then the humans living under Goa'uld rule saw what she had done, and taking inspiration from her, were able to drive the Goa'uld back through the Stargates and to other more hospitable planets." not-Flutie said.  
  
"Yes, the timing was very fortunate indeed." Vikkii said. Xander was left with the impression that the Powers That Be had not quite left the rebellions to chance.   
  
"And we made a few gentle suggestions that the Gates be buried to prevent the Goa'uld from coming back, and trying to make another treaty with the next generation of vampire lords to allow the demons to go beyond Earth. Unfortunately, that which should have remained buried has been unearthed. And we worry that the wrong entities will breach the boundaries that they were supposed to be contained by."   
  
"But fortunately, when there is need, that which must be Called can be Called from across the stars."   
  
"I say again: Huh?"   
  
"Sorry, we're running out of time here. You've got a flight to go catch yourself." Vikkii grabbed him by the arm, dragging him out of the chair and through the classroom door. He got a glimpse of a rack of video tapes again.  
  
Then he woke up in a tangle of sheets and blankets.   
  
********* 


	8. 8

"We have a Gate activation, Colonel." Sgt. Timmons said.  
  
"Thank you, Sergeant." The overnight duty officer in the Stargate Control Room tried to blink herself into a higher level of alertness. Somehow, that never seemed to quite work. "Nothing was on the schedule, so who's gotten themselves into trouble this time? SG-3 again?"   
  
"Gate and G.D.O. code are coming frim Taiga, ma'am."   
  
"Taiga? We don't have any active teams on Taiga." She said. Keyboards clicked in the background as more NCOs typed for answers.   
  
"Ma'am, SG-5 was there two months ago. During that trip, Lt. John Shore, and Lt. Eddie Brophy went AWOL." Sgt. Martinez said.  
  
"GDO code matches that for Lt. Brophy." Sgt. Timmons said.   
  
"Status on Taiga since our lost boys were reported AWOL?" she asked.  
  
"Three trips there by SG-9. As of three weeks ago, no reports of or suggestions of Goa'uld intrusion in the area."   
  
She took a deep breath. Damn judgement calls. Maybe it was time to go back into weapons R&D. Maybe he was just trying to get home. Maybe something more sinister was in the works.   
  
"Security in the Gate room, you're on alert now. Signal says he's one of ours, but don't take any chances. Sgt. Czerny, be ready to slam the blast doors if need be. " Martinez hit a switch for the alarm. "Iris will open in thirty seconds." They watched as soldiers streamed into the Gate Room.   
  
"Iris open now." Seconds seemed to stretch into hours before an average looking pale man in a dirty uniform walked through the Gate. His appearance matched the id photo on Czerny's computer screen.  
  
"Hey, is that a big gun there, or are you glad to see me?" he said to the commandos now surrounding him.   
  
"Close the iris now." she directed, letting out the breath she had not known she was holding.   
  
"I trust you have a good reason for your unplanned vacation, Lt. Brophy."  
  
"It's a long story, oh great voice in the sky. Can I have meal and a nice long soak in the tub first? Those people back there are maybe a hundred years out yet from the whole indoor plumbing concept."  
  
"We can get you a MRE and a shower, Lieutenant." She said, emphasizing the last word. "Then we'll run you through the infirmary and you'll have a nice discussion from some people who will really want to talk to you."  
  
Infirmary. Eddie's first thought was that the place sounded like his best chance to pick up some low fuss overnight diner food. They had to have a nice stash of blood on hand with all the casualties that SGC saw. As he was marched out of the Gate Room, he came to the slow conclusion that it might be just a wee bit hard to explain why his heart was no longer beating. He just might have screwed up by trying to come home. And he seemed to have picked up a couple of jailers. As he showered in one of the bathrooms in temporary quarters, they hovered near the urinals. He donned the generic but clean uniform one of the guards had provided him in place of the old one that was being sent to the incenerator, and ran a quick comb through his hair by feel. The next hour was going to be very interesting.   
  
They took the elevator up to 21, and he walked out the doors with his escort, he made his move. He grabbed one of the guards, intending to drag him back into the elevator and use him as a hostage-slash-snack. He got maybe five feet along before the first zat shot hit him. Dropping the hostage, he lunged for the door before it slammed shut in front of him. The guards continued to fire at him. He took maybe a half dozen hits before he faded to unconsciuosness, thinking that he probably should have stayed back in the mud after all.   
  
********  
  
"Sorry about taking so long. I got here as soon as they took Cheyenne Mountain off of lockdown." Janet Frasier asked as she walked into the Infirmary after yet another middle of the night summons. What's the report on Edward Brophy, Dr. Avery?"   
  
"It's like nothing else I've seen before." He said.  
  
"And if we haven't seen it before, our Lieutenant must be a special case." She said, wondering just how bad it had to be before Avery thought it was getting weird.   
  
"First, his body was still intact after taking somewhere between eight and ten zat hits."   
  
"First? There's more?"  
  
"Brophy had no heart beat, and no pulse. We brought him to the room we use as a temporary morgue. It was me, two guards and Nurse Corelli in with the body. Corelli and I removed Brophy's clothes and began an examination. Then Brophy, he opened his eyes and grabbed at Corelli. Before we could get her away from him, his face changed and he tried to bite her throat. Fortunately, Corelli managed to lunge away from him long enough that the guards could shoot him into death or unconsciuosness again. Still took longer than it was supposed to."   
  
"And where are we at now?"   
  
"We've got him in guarded isolation right now waiting to see if he wakes up again. Corelli's also isolated in another part of the infirmary. Brophy just barely broke the skin on her neck, so we're taking precautions."  
  
"Any theories as to what happened to Lt. Brophy, or if that even is the real Brophy?"   
  
"The way his face changed, and the way his canines dropped down in his mouth like fangs... Do you believe vampires could exist?"   
  
"I never thought they were real, but with this job, nothing would surprise me." She thought back to a former patient that had kept screaming about vampires and demons in a way that seemed to go beyond any normal bad drug reactions. She walked across the room to pick up the phone to the Control Room.  
  
"Sergeant Davis? So they dragged you out of bed for the crisis too. I need you to contact SG-1 with their training group on Kinve. We're going to need them to figure out this one, and tell them to bring back Airman Harris too. Just a hunch, but I think he might know something about what happened to Lt. Brophy."  
  
**********************  
  
"I fart in your general direction." Eric MacInnis fired his intar rifle at the Jaffas making their way up the hill. The energy bolt hit the Jaffa square in the chest, causing him to fall to the ground in a very satisfactory way.  
  
"Hey, nice shot there." Xander said, carefully looking out from their covered position behind a mass of rock and shrubbery. "Three more with that partol."  
  
"Thanks. Sgt. Cole's been working with me extra. He says he's never had someone he's taught to shoot not qualify, and I'm not going to be the first one." MacInnis said.   
  
"Got him." Xander said after he fired and took out Big Bad Jaffa Number Two.  
  
"Your mother was a hamster." Captain Leanne Mahaffrey said as she fired her rifle, picking off the next of the Jaffas. It figured that Xander would get himself stuck in a foxhole with the two biggest Monty Python fans in Training Class 17.  
  
"And your father smelt of elderberries." MacInnis said, downing the last of the Jaffas.   
  
"Good job, Doctor. Good job, Airman." Mahaffrey said. "Now let's have two of us watching the trail for more hostiles while the other one get somethings to drink. Rotate it. Hot day out, and dehydration messes with your reflexes." MacInnis broke out a canteen, and had taken his first few gulps when the radios started cracking.  
  
"Airman Harris, we need you to report back to base camp immediately. This is not part of the exercise. Report back now."  
  
"Roger that." Xander replied into his mike. "I'll make my way down the hill." He grabbed for his pack.  
  
"Hold it there, Airman." Mahaffrey said. "You know what they said at the mission briefings."  
  
"Don't trample the daisies?" MacInnis said.  
  
"No, the part about always watching for people who aren't acting right."   
  
"And it's weird to get pulled off the hill in the middle of an exercise." Xander said.   
  
"So you aren't going back there alone." she said. "Hey, Team Delta, Team Bravo." She spoke into her radio. "Can you hold down the fort a bit while Team Alpha finishes getting the, well whatever the fuck they're supposed to be finding? Got a situation that needs taking care of downwind." Voices came back on the radio channel saying they would hold down their positions and buffer Team Alpha from the Jaffas.  
  
The three scrambled down the road, following a game trail back to base camp. The camp was small- a handful of tents, a latrine area near the tree line, and a headquarters building that looked like a large potting shed. They walked into the shed to see the members of SG-1 gathered there.   
  
"Team Charlie reporting back to camp." Mahaffrey said.   
  
"All of you?" Colonel O'Neill said. He sat behind a small camp desk. Major Carter, Daniel Jackson, and Teal'C stood near him looking through a pile of topographic maps.   
  
"We're all here." Xander said. As he said 'here', the three opened fire as planned, quickly tagging SG-1 with intar fire before the others could draw a weapon.   
  
"Ouch." Daniel said.  
  
"Hey, what was that about?" O'Neill said.  
  
"You were exhibiting suspicous behavior, sir." Mahaffrey said. "Seemed like a good idea to neutralize you so we could sort out and see if you were compromised."   
  
"Good thinking on your part. Unfortunately, the recall order was not part of the exercise." Sam said. "Captain Mahaffrey, Doctor MacInnis, return to your previous spot in the exercise. We need to talk to Airman Harris alone." The two made their way out the door back towards the Jaffa hunt.   
  
"Sir, ma'am, am I in trouble?" Xander asked.  
  
"We've got a situation, and we're looking for information, and Dr. Frasier thought that you might be able to help us." Daniel said.   
  
"Okay. I don't know what I know and the rest of the people in 17 don't. I get the feeling I'm one of the dumber people here." Xander said.   
  
"However from what Dr. Frasier said, you may be SGC's best vampire expert." Sam said.   
  
"Vampires?" Xander said, looking around the room as all the blood drained out of his face.   
  
"Vampires." Daniel said. Xander's eyes settled on Teal'C. It was his presence and role in the Stargate program that had oddly made Xander want to trust everyone else. If SGC was anything like the Initiative, Teal'C would have spent the rest of his life in the bowels of Cheyenne Mountain. Junior would have been removed, kept alive for a while, and then dissected. But the Jaffa was an equal partner, and from what he had seen, a friend to the SG-1 team.  
  
"AirmanHarris?" Xander blinked, realizing he had been staring a bit too long at the other man.   
  
"Yes. Vampires are real." He started out softly, his voice increasing in strength and volume as he continued. "As real as the Goa'uld. I don't remember what I would have been telling Dr. Frasier when I was jumped up on painkillers, but I'm telling you now they're real, and they're trouble. They can be just as deadly as the Goa'uld. Just look up the death rates in Sunnydale California. The vampires killed a lot of my friends, lots of people I went to school with, lots more people I knew from around town. We tried to fight them, but you stop one, and two more come to town. If you ever get ahold of the Initiative's old reports, you'd know how bad it can get. If you found the planet where they come from, just send in a bunch of nukes and you'd be doing the universe a favor."  
  
"We don't have a vampire planet, or at least Taiga had no myths to suggest a vampire presence on that planet according to the culture report. But we think we might have one in the Infirmary back at NORAD." Daniel said.   
  
"You can't be telling me he went through the Stargate, sir?" Xander groaned. "One vampire could make a mess of a world that didn't know how to defend itself against him. And then you never end up with just one vampire, sir. They multiply like. Well they multiply like bunnies."   
  
"Unfortunately, it looks like he did. And we're going to need the help of SGC's shiny new vampires expert in order to assess the damage that might have caused." O'Neill said, making a mental note to find out more about the Initiative, and how Airman Harris might have crossed paths with it, even though it was probably going to take General Hammond picking up the red phone to do so.   
  
"I guess I'm your man then. I thought I was done with vampires for a while when I joined the Air Force. But hey, same old song, just a new verse." Xander said. 


	9. 9

Once more, apologizing for the delay between parts. Sometimes the universe just kind of happens on you.  
  
"She's not compromised, sir." Xander said as he looked into the cell holding Nurse Frances Corelli. SGC's newly dubbed vampire expert found himself center stage and surrounded by the SG-1 team, most of the medical staff, and a handful of base guards. So much for trying to keep a low profile in the Air Force, he thought.   
  
"How can you be certain?" Dr. Frasier asked.   
  
"The cross around her neck. Vampires can't come near crosses or other holy objects. They have very bad reactions to them. Not quite as spectacular as wood or sunlight, but enough to make them a very uncomfortable and cranky vampire indeed."   
  
"And we can't be having our vampires be cranky? So what are we supposed to do? Send them a couple extra pints of B positive to cheer them up?" O'Neill said.   
  
"Sir, it's more than when they seem happy, they don't pay attention to what's going on, and they're easier to kill then. But Nurse Corelli is going to be fine. The cross stopped the vampire from doing anything more than grazing her throat. He barely drew blood at all, and she didn't drink any of his blood. In order for a baby vampire to be born, there needs to be an exchange of blood, as one of my friends would say, a whole big sucking thing. Then the person dies, the demon takes over the body, there's the whole traditional and done to death cliched rising from the grave event, and you have a brand new member of the blood sucking undead."  
  
"Back up there. You're saying demons are involved somehow. " Daniel said.   
  
"Demons. The demons don't like their home dimension and are constantly trying to come back to Earth. A vampire is a demon that takes over the dead body of its host. Really dead body. The vampire has access to the memories of the dead person, and may even act like their host some of the time. But it's not like the Goa'uld where there's a real person buried under what's controlling the body. The human soul is totally gone, and only the shell of what they once were is left." Xander said. He was so not going to go into the whole gypsy curse soul exemption right now.   
  
"With everything else we've been through, I guess I can buy the whole idea of demons." O'Neill said. "Don't like it, but then it doesn't seem to matter if I like it or not."  
  
"The soul really is gone?" Daniel said.   
  
"Gone. Expired and off to meet its maker. Pushing up metaphysical daisies. Joined the choir invisible." Xander said, deciding he had been hanging around Eric and Captain Mahaffrey too much. "Look sirs, I'm sorry if Lt. Brophy was a friend of yours. It's not easy the first couple of times to see them walking around and sounding like the people you knew when it isn't them anymore."   
  
"The first couple of times?" O'Neill said.   
  
"Then you stop thinking so much, and just stake them into powder." Xander said. "Ma'am, Dr. Frasier, they said we were supposed to get screened by medical every time we went through the Stargate. How did Dead Soldier Walking make it past you?"   
  
"I went back and checked the records, and his team was medically cleared to go through the Stargate to Taiga on February 18. An hour before their trip, SG-9 came back early from another mission in which the usual all hell was breaking loose. Lt. Brophy's team's mission got pushed back to February 21st in the shuffle, and with that little time between the old departure and new departure, we didn't do another full medical clearance, just asked people to report any sniffles or headaches. Would that have been enough time for Brophy to become infected and become a vampire?"   
  
"It would have, ma'am." He said. The room hit a natural conversational lull, everyone silent at once.   
  
"Sirs, you really can release Nurse Corelli now." Xander said. He glanced at a clock on the infirmary wall. "If you're really still worried, vampires go all nice and spontaneuosly combusty in daylight, and it's one thirty in the afternoon, so an after lunch hike on the side of the mountain should prove she's going to be okay."   
  
"So a vampire catches fire in daylight, but not under ordinary lightbulbs. I wonder if the difference is explained by the ultraviolet part of the spectrum." Sam said. "And if so, we could use ultraviolet light in the corridor outside the Gate Room to prevent any more vampires going through the Stargate."   
  
"And while you're busy with starting to figure out that, the rest of us are going to have a nice talk with Brophy. We need to figure out how and where he got infected, and how much of a mess we're going to need to clean up on Taiga." O'Neill said. "Daniel, Harris you're with me." He started to walk down the corridor, the other men following behind him.   
  
"Um, permission to speak freely to what used to be Lt. Brophy? I mean really freely?" Xander asked.  
  
"What do you have in mind, kid?" O'Neill said.  
  
"I'm not sure yet. Usually I really do my best witty banter on the fly. " He thought he saw the Colonel almost smile at that. "But sometimes with these guys you have to give them a punch in the ego a couple times to get them talking. And it might be better if I talk to him alone at first. Not let him know everyone at the Mountain knows what he's turned into. "   
  
"Permission granted. Just no insulting his mother."  
  
"Okay, got that sir."   
  
"And you probably want to lose the insignia there. You aren't quite in the position to pull off the crusty old Master Sergeant keeping the green Lieutenant in line. " Daniel said.   
  
"Something inside me had been saying it was time to lay off on the Grecian Formula, but that cursed male vanity keeps me hiding the grey hairs."   
  
"Showtime, campers." O'Neill said as the group reached the holding cells. Guards on either side of Lt. Brophy's cell snapped to attention for the colonel. "We've got a video and audio link to the cell, and will be watching, but still make sure to yell loudly and clearly if you need help in there." Xander shrugged out of the top half of his BDUs, and after a moment of flailing around and hand signals passed it to Daniel. He then adjusted a chain around his neck so that a small silver cross was visible atop his black undershirt.   
  
"Ready." After a nod from O'Neill, the guards opened the cell door.  
  
"Hey there." The cell contained a rather ordinary looking man- pale, brownish hair, brown eyes. Brophy sat on a cot, and to Xander's surprise, didn't try to charge him as the door closed behind him. "Heard you might have a sunlight allergy there."   
  
"Maybe, maybe not. What's it to you?"   
  
"Because we just might be able to help each other out here. You answer the questions, and I'll swipe a nice pint or two from the infirmary for you. Even the A/B positive you guys are supposed to go crazy for. If you don't, no talkie, no drinkie, and it's not looking like the guards here are going to let you out for a feeding on your own."  
  
"If I had a hostage." Brophy shifted his weight on the cot.  
  
"Not gonna happen." Xander said, holding the cross up in front of the vampire. "Wouldn't be prudent. Now the sooner you cooperate, well I'll bet you'll be getting very very hungry before long. "  
  
"I still don't see what's in it for me."   
  
"Okay, I'm trying to be nice here. Bees. Honey. Vinegar. Table Salt and all that." Xander straightened his shoulders and moved into vampire-staking tough guy posture. "But I don't have to be nice. I used to run with the Slayer's crowd. I know what makes your kind tick. Believe me, I could set it up so that you're begging for a nice clean staking to end it all."   
  
"Okay, I'll talk then." A little part of Xander's brain yelped out 'It worked, it really did work' in delight. Intimidation had always been a very iffy thing for him.  
  
"Who's your sire, where did it happen, when did it happen?"  
  
"A beautiful woman named Elizabeth Bathory. Met her at a place called Mercury. Came home from work the day they delayed the Taiga mission, and John Shore and I decided to check out this new club in town we'd been hearing about." Xander had heard of Mercury too. It had been placed off limits to Air Force personnel the month before after a double stabbing homicide at the bar. He was now wondering if the knife wounds had really been bite marks.   
  
"And then she vamped you out in the club?"  
  
"No, in her apartment. It was three doors over and two stories down from Mercury. Underneath the Indonesian market."   
  
"John Shore too?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"And then you decided to go through the Stargate? Why?"   
  
"Why not? Briefing said that the Gate on Taiga, with where it was, the place was in the middle of a very long, very dark winter. No need to worry about daylight. No need to worry about Slayers coming along and trying to take you out. Just the interstellar equivalent of going out to Golden Corral and never having to leave the restaurant."  
  
"And why did you come back?"  
  
"Got bored. No MTV, no motorcars, not a single luxury. Johnny could handle the whole Robinson Crusoe assisted by a bunch of babes thing, but not me."   
  
"So you two made vampires on Taiga?"  
  
"A few here and there. Didn't want to have to compete for food too much with the locals, but there were times you just couldn't resist it."   
  
"Great. Just like bunnies as usual. Don't suppose you could tell me where Lt. Shore is still hiding."  
  
"Name of the city, it doesn't translate well. But I could show you on a map. And if you've got to find a map, don't suppose you could find me my A/B positive? I am getting the munchies."  
  
"Okay. You've given me some good information so far. Bees. Honey. Good little vampie wampie." Xander said as he signaled for the guards to let him out of the cell. He walked out, and the door was closed behind him.  
  
"What's a Slayer, Harris?" Daniel said as he emerged from the small room with a video screen.  
  
"The Big Bad for vampires." Xander said. "I'd call the Slayer the vampire's boogeyman, but that's a whole other type of demon."  
  
"So the vampires have their own mythology and culture seperate from normal humans?"  
  
"Yes, sir."   
  
"Another time, Daniel. Sounds like Earth's actions may have damaged Taiga, and we need to go back there to see what needs fixing."   
  
"Sir, about the vampires in Colorado Springs?"   
  
"Not really our jurisdiction, but as usual we're going to be the ones responsible for clearing them out." 


	10. 10

Over the next few hours, a general was briefed, a nurse was verified to still be a living breathing human not under any form of mind control, the decision of what to do with the creature still calling himself Lt. Brophy was deferred, and other plans were developed then put into motion. Which in turn led a van full of SG-1 team members plus Airman Harris heading toward downtown Colorado Springs to deal with one Elizabeth Bathory, presumed vampire.   
  
"And here we are, sirs." Harris said as stopped the van in the Mountain Pines Apartments parking lot. "I'm in beautiful unit 137-B, otherwise known as the second door to from the left. Let me apologise in advance for the mess. I still haven't gotten around to unpacking everything."   
  
"Don't worry. I'm sure we've seen worse." Daniel said as the group left the van. He still had a million questions in his mind. He felt like he had seen more of Earth than most people including some seriously weird shit in Egypt. He had thought he was in the loop when it came to matters of non-mainstream archaeology. And from what Harris had said, vampires weren't terribly rare in a lot of places. So why had his first encounter with one been only four hours before when Brophy had gone into what Harris referred to as 'Gameface'?   
  
"Anyone going to want a coffee?" Harris asked as he unlocked his apartment door and walked inside. "I've known a couple of people who swore by a nice stiff cappacino before going out slaying. Helped sharpen up the senses, or so they claimed." As SG-1started to follow him in, Teal'C suddenly stopped.   
  
"It feels as though something is keeping me from passing through the doorway."   
  
"Sorry there." Harris said. He squinted at the doorway, and tilted to one side. "Enter and be welcome into my house. Try it again there, sir."   
  
"The feeling is gone now." Teal'C successfully walked into the small living room.   
  
"You have some sort of force field capable of stopping a Goa'uld from entering your place? Even when it's in larval form?" Carter said. "And I didn't see you turn it off before he could walk in."   
  
"No force field, ma'am. I don't think I could pull off something like that even if I did stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night. I do have a warding spell set up to keep non-humans from coming in without my permission. The spell was created to keep demons from getting inside. I discovered it could also keep cockroaches out, which was pretty handy when I was TDY in Guam so I kept up with the warding from then on out. I guess I'm learning it covers alien life forms too. Make yourselves at home. I've got to grab some things from the bedroom a minute." Harris grabbed a backpack from off the futon that served as a couch then vanished behind a door.   
  
The apartment was small; the combined living and dining room barely held the futon, a stack of brown boxes, a large television set, a smaller dining table, and a particleboard computer desk and chair. It was the contents of the small mdf bookcase to the side of the television that caught Daniels' attention. A top shelf of haphazardly stacked DVDs served as an odd contrast to the shelves of old books with rather decorative bindings underneath. Daniel moved closer to read the titles: "On the Anatomy of Common Demons of Asia Minor and Major", "Known Vampire Lineages", "The Fae- Fact, Fiction, and Theories"  
  
"Anyone out there comfortable using a crossbow?" Harris yelled from the bedroom amid what sounded like boxes getting pulled out from under the bed.   
  
"I am, AirmanHarris." Teal'C said.   
  
"Cool. They end up being pretty useful sometimes." As Daniel kept looking at book titles, it registered that they were in half a dozen different languages- mostly Latin and Greek, but he spotted a few in Sanskrit and another in a relatively obscure Egyptian dialect.   
  
"Here we go, sir." Harris emerged from the bedroom, giving Teal'C the crossbow and a brace of tipless wooden bolts. "And everyone gets four stakes. More if you want them." He reached back, pulling a large plastic bag from the room and then started passing the stakes to each member of SG-1.   
  
"Why four of them?" Jack asked as he took his.  
  
"You stick a couple of them in your pockets so when you inevitably get your ass slammed into a tree or wall by the vamp, you don't have to worry if you drop stake you're already holding. You just reach down and grab the next one. The whole drop your weapon and then have the monster come between you and it is just so bad horror movie. Everyone gets a cross too." Harris passed out oversized crucifixes on neck chains. "Vampires have a really hard time dealing with crosses. Even my Jewish friends wear one if they're going out Slaying."  
  
"All this, and you said you hadn't been fratenizing with the supernatural since you joined the Air Force?" Carter said.   
  
"Ma'am, my middle name is healthy paranoia. Just because I don't see them anymore doesn't mean that they aren't out there. And some of them would have a grudge to pick with me. 'Scuse me again. I want to grab the holy water and a couple more things out of the bathroom medicine cabinet." Harris briefly ducked behind another doorway. "I think I've got everything we could need, sirs."  
  
"Great. It's time to go kill Dracula then." Jack said.  
  
"Dracula actually got himself staked about two years back. Rumor has it he didn't even rate that high up on the scare Big Bads scale when you got close to him. He just had a couple hundred years of good publicists." Harris said. Daniel found himself wondering if Vlad the Impaler, who according to folklore was supposed to be the vampire equivalent of a system lord, wasn't considered to be one of the more powerful bad guys, then just what else was out there that was worse. The group filed out of the apartment, Harris being careful to lock up after they left.  
  
"Can't you just..." Jack moved his hands around like he was casting a spell.  
  
"It doesn't work to keep humans out, sir. "   
  
The trip from Harris' apartment to the presumed abode of Elizabeth Bathory was spent going over plans for the vampire hunt. Her underground abode was easy enough to find, however it took three trips around the block to find a parking spot for the van. Daniel dug through the glove compartment a bit, finally turning up a police parking placard there which enabled Harris to park next to a fire hydrant.   
  
"Hope these work." Carter said, passing out a series of headlamps to the team. "The ultraviolet bulbs should give us some working room around the vampires, even if they aren't quite strong enough to burn them." Headlamps on, the team left the van and headed to the vampire lair.   
  
"Whoa, what you got there?" Daniel heard a voice from behind him. He turned to see a scruffy looking college age kid eyeing SG-1.  
  
"Urban caving. It's all the thing to do in Boulder right now. We thought we'd give it a try here." Harris said.  
  
"Cool dude. I'd join you but too many creepy crawlies down there." College kid wandered down the street away from the team.  
  
"Urban caving? Is that real?" Teal'C asked.  
  
"No idea, but it sounded good on that old tv show, what was it called? Beauty and the Beast. And people don't want to believe the weird and scary are out there, so they believe what sounded good."  
  
"You obviously haven't run into the Area 51 conspiracy theory nuts yet." Carter said as the team make their way down a stairway. "Everyone got their headlamps on?"  
  
"But I'd bet for every one of those people there are a thousand who still believe that Sunnydale High was destroyed by a gas leak. Chances are, you don't get the one in a thousand. Here we are. Chez Vampire." Harris replied.  
  
The team had reached a closed and locked basement door. As planned, Jack blasted open the door with his zat. Harris and Teal'C took the lead through the door, with Sam and Daniel close behind. With inhuman speed, a pierced, purple-haired man bolted from a sagging sofa, lunging toward Harris. Teal'C stepped in front of Harris, stake at the ready position. Purple's momentum carried him into the stake. The man then screamed as he disintegrated into dust before their eyes.   
  
"Poof?" Teal'C said.  
  
"Poof." Harris confirmed. The vampire's dust swirled through the room, dancing past the headlamps for a few seconds before half of it started to make its way up Daniel's nose. This triggered an extended bout of sneezing on his part. The team paused to let Daniel catch his breath again.  
  
"Note to self: if I do this again, I need to take a Claritin first. I think I'm allergic to the vampire dust."   
  
"I did put a box of kleenex in the van just in case. The sooner we secure this area, the sooner you can go back and wipe your nose." Jack said. "Ready to go onward?"  
  
They passed through two more rooms before finding the second vampire. This one was in full game face already. He seemeda little more alert and a bit smarter. He came at Harris from the side, hitting him hard. Harris slammed heavily into the wall. The vampire then tried to punch at Teal'C but missed.  
  
"Where is Elizabeth Bathory?" Sam yelled at the vampire.  
  
"Not gonna tell you. Just gonna kill you." The vampire replied, still focused on Teal'C's bulky frame. His back was to Harris who was getting back on his feet, stake in hand.   
  
"Well if you want to end it that way." Harris said, stepping forward and driving the stake into the vampire from behind. "Don't forget to tip your waiter on the way out." He continued as the vampire crumbled to dust.   
  
"Poof again." Jack said as the dust set off another round of Daniel Jackson sneezing.   
  
"My eyes are starting to water from this."  
  
"Sir, seems like they've just got some really bad air circulation going on down here. I can smell a bit of graveyard mold in the air too." Harris said. "Maybe the next room will be better."   
  
"And can we try to find one that's a bit more talkative. Harris, I thought you said the vampires usually liked to go into the whole evil genius speech and lecture." Jack said.  
  
"They usually do." he replied.   
  
The team went on through another two rooms before reaching the coffin room. At first, the room and four coffins seemed to be empty as the team started to file into the room. But there had been a vampire waiting to the side of the door. He tried to get past Daniel and make a break for it. Daniel instinctively bent his knees and turned his body so that the vampire's chest connected with his shoulder. They connected hard. Daniel went to the ground, feeling like someone had tried to land an Al'kesh on him. Harris had been telling the truth about how strong the vampires could be.   
  
The vampire went the other direction, bouncing off first one wall, then a coffin before Teal'C pinned him against the wall with the tiller of the crossbow. The Jaffa held the bow steady across the vampire's neck, putting what looked to be a lot of muscleinto keeping the vampire immobile.   
  
"You will talk, and answer our questions." Teal'C said.   
  
"Or what?" The vampire said. This one was also male, and not looking like a seventeenth century Hungarian Countess.   
  
"We stake you." Harris said.   
  
"We're looking for information, and the fellow over there." Daniel nodded at Jack. Jack waved at the vampire, stake in hand, while Daniel sneezed again. "Gets rather cranky when non-humans are reluctant to talk."   
  
"Okay, what you want?"   
  
"Elizabeth Bathory. whether in one piece or tiny little bitty pieces doesn't matter."  
  
"She left town a month ago. Headed to Sunnydale, California. Said it was time to go bathe in the blood of a Slayer again."  
  
"When did you last hear from her?" Harris asked.   
  
"Two weeks ago. We were supposed to go off to Toronto together when she was done in California. But I haven't heard from her since. Getting a little worried about her. She was going to check in every couple of days, but nothing." Harris stared at the vampire. He had mentioned he had run with this Slayer. Daniel would bet that Harris was counting back days, e-mails and phone calls in his mind to see if his friend was safe.  
  
"Is that your final answer? She's gone to the Hellmouth?" Harris said.  
  
"Final answer." The vampire replied.   
  
"Okay then." Harris reched around Teal'C and drove his stake into the vampire's chest. SG-1 went silent for a moment as the vampire crumbled, then Daniel started sneezing again.  
  
"Did you have to do that?" Sam asked.  
  
"Ma'am, I never said that I wouldn't stake him if he did talk." Harris replied as he brushed vampire dust off his hands. "We couldn't just leave him here to chomp someone else, and putting them incaptivity tends to just get them all mean and pissed off."   
  
"So what's next?" Daniel asked.   
  
"I've still got a buttload of contacts in Sunnyhell. I can give them the name Elizabeth Bathory, and see if she's really gone there. If she did, the Slayer's probably killed her already. If not, they're all hooked up in the undead rumor mills and can probably say where she is if she's still among the not-living. I give them just her name- nothing about Gates or Taiga, or anything else."   
  
"If you can make it just the name, then premission granted to pass it along. Meanwhile, let's get out of this place and spare Daniel and his allergies." 


	11. 11

text of e-mail from Willow to Xander:  
  
Re:person you asked about B. says "Think cheesy Kansas songs"  
  
Happy Hecate's birthday,  
Wills PS- Is it possible that the pod creatures have taken over my mother again? She is buying into the bridal industrial complex in a big way, and is complaining that there isn't a single kosher caterer in the state of Vermont good enough for her daughter's reception. She even keeps talking about having Tara's family over for some sort of tea and tiny sandwiches party. Am thinking we should elope now.  
  
Daniel sat at the desk in his office at work. One hand was attached to a coffee, the other flipped through a stack of paperwork atop the blotter. The preliminary plans had them headed to Taiga the day after tommorrow, and he wanted to make sure all his responsibilities on Earth were covered and memos were signed off on. He had just gotten as far as the revised and SG-1-free SGC orientation plan when the knock at the door came.  
  
"It's open. Come on in." Airman Harris twisted his way through the doorway, manouvering a wheeled cart filled with boxes behind him.  
  
"Morning, sir. If Stargate's going to find themselves all tangled up in the supernatural creepy-crawlies, I figured you could use a couple of the basic books for your library. If you suddenly find there's a Bezoar living under the floorboards of level 17, or someone gets turned into a Fyarl demon, it's good to be able to look things up on the spot." Harris started to pull books out of the boxes and stack them next to Daniel's desk.  
  
"These are from your apartment? That many books must be hard to come by. Do you need to fill out a reimbursement report for them? In theory, I've got a couple of those sheets around here." Daniel gestured at room overflowing with bits and pieces from a slew of different worlds.  
  
"Yeah, and no. They're all reference copies- nothing made with salamander blood ink, or werewolf hide binding, or useable as major spell focuses so they're cheap and pretty easy to get ahold of if you know where to ask. I called a friend, told him mine were damaged in my move, and he's sending me another set in a couple days to go back in my place. So we can each have our very own copies of Violetti's Taxonomy of Werecritters, Diary of Lucius Temple, Ineshin's Demogrpahy in the original Estonian- the English and Latin translations of that one leave out a ton of important stuff that's likley to get you killed or turned into a troll or something, and besides, Ineshin's funny to read, kind of like the fifteenth century supernatural version of Dave Barry."  
  
"You speak Estonian? Your file didn't show any foreign language skills."  
  
"Normal reality, sir, I'm the guy who just barely got a passing grade in high school Spanish. Can barely remember how to say 'dos cervezas y los puso en la cuenta de hombre lobo'. But well, um, there was a time when I had to learn Latin really quickly, and is there a way to keep this off my record, there was this spell, and well I learned Latin really quickly and painfully. Along with Greek, a couple Egyptian dialects, Sanskrit, and a couple more. I think the Estonian was kind of like a bonus CD track since I haven't used it much besides Ineshin."  
  
"And Spanish?"  
  
"Not part of the spell, so it's all 'cinco tacos, por favor', and not much more."  
  
"You could have mentioned the Latin at least."  
  
"The whole idea when I got into the Air Force was to try to pretend my pre-service life was as normal as possible. Seemed like saying anything remotely dealing with the weird was going to get me sent to the place with the nice padded cells. Instead I end up in the one part of the service that spends three hours during orientation on what to do when, not if, when you're possessed by an alien life force. Yes, hat's my so-called life for you. " Harris said as he unloaded the last box.  
  
"On the bright side, you ended up in one of the few places in the Air Force, civilian world for that matter too, that really does appreciate unusual talents like that. Before the Stargate project, everything I believed, the rest of the world called me a crackpot for saying what I thought. Here, the more unusual the skill you have, or craziest plan you can come up with, that's what ends up saving my team's ass. The Egyptian dialects especially. Nice to know when the writing on the wall says 'to destroy this planet, push red button' "  
  
"Yeah, this place is starting to feel like home in a weird sort of way. But a little part of me still wants to be in Florida- palm trees, college co-eds, a refresting lack of portals to other worlds both interdimensional and intergalactic."  
  
"But it's not all Goa'uld and gunfire out there. Step through the Gate, and you get to find peaceful, fascinating civilizations complete with the palm trees and beautiful women." There was a bit of sadness in Daniel's voice then.  
  
"It really is good to hear that, sir. The save the world from Apocalypse was pretty much constant once I hooked up with the Slayer. And speaking of vampires, the combat accounts said I'm supposed to work with you to come up with a list of basic anti-vampire gear, and that you could clear any purchases."  
  
"I had been wondering just where one goes to buy their holy water and wooden stakes in bulk."  
  
"Sir, Sunnyhell being what it was, we actually did make our own stakes in shop class, but if you need to buy general arcane combat supplies wholesale or in bulk, you call Chuck's." Harris said as he pulled out his wallet and started to dig through the folds.  
  
"Chuck's?"  
  
"Yeah." Harris successfully pulled a battered business card out of the wallet and put it on the desk. "How do you hit speakerphone? They're going to want to talk to you too." Daniel hit a few buttons on the phone, Harris punched a few more, and the line began to ring.  
  
"Big Buck Chuck's, Couer D'Alene's best sporting good store, how may I help you?" the cheerful voice asked.  
  
"Hi there. I need to talk to Jeannie in special items. My name is Xander Harris. I should still be on the list."  
  
"One moment please, let me see if she's available." the two were placed on hold to the sound of Willie Nelson.  
  
"Big Buck Chuck's?" Daniel asked.  
  
"Slogan if you're in the biz: whether you're after trophy deer, or trophy demon, Chuck will get you ready for the hunt." If SGC ever gave him any length of time off, Daniel was already making plans to start studying what was sounding more and more like America's sizeable subernatural subculture. The phone clicked from hold and a woman's voice came on.  
  
"Xander, it's good to hear from you again. The girls at the Magic Box said you were gone from the Hellmouth and out of the business."  
  
"You know how it goes. You think you're out of the game, and then you get pulled back in."  
  
"Some people it's a job or a hobby. I've always suspected it would turn out it was a vocation for you. You're just that kind of person."  
  
"So much for my lifetime goal of being a drywall specialist then. How's the family doing?"  
  
"My babies are growing up on me. Dina's going to be a freshman at BYU next year, Topher's getting ready for his mission work."  
  
"And I'm sure you still don't look a day over 25."  
  
"Flattery will get you far, child. I'll even give you a 5% discount as part of our valued customer progam. So what can we do for you today?"  
  
"Same old war, but I'm working for a new company now. So new account, and new tab. Anya would make me wish I was dead if all of this went on the Magic Box's tab. And I've got someone I'm vouching for so he can order from you if I'm not here. Jeannie Larch, this is Dr. Daniel Jackson. Dr. Jackson- Jeannie."  
  
"Good to meet you, Ms. Larch. You certainly have an unusual business."  
  
"Pays for the kids' college tuition these days. Doctor of linguistics, archaeology, or library science?"  
  
"Archaeology. How did you guess?"  
  
"People that need our services, it's almost always one of those three. I keep telling Dina how impractical it would be for her to major in electrical engineering if she's planning on staying in the family business. Something nice and sensible like Egyptian history is so much better even if you're only on the fringes of the demon control business. Anyways, always good to meet a friend of a friend of a Slayer."  
  
"And it's good to know there are people like you that are devoted to protecting Earth from the supernatural."  
  
"Just following in the family tradition. So what are you two needing?" Daniel glanced at Xander.  
  
"Let's start out with thirty gallons of holy water. Doesn't matter if it's Roman Catholic, Orthodox, or other Christian brand, whatever you've got on hand. What kind of stakes do you have in stock right now? We're going to need about ten cases. Don't worry. No Armageddons on the astral calendar that I know of. We just need a good stockpile for just in case."  
  
"I've got some nice sturdy ash- triple blessed for your protection. Also some overstocked rowan I can give you a great price on. Have had problems getting ahold of yew this season for some reason..."  
  
As Daniel listened on, Harris and Jeannie worked their way through a list of increasingly leathal sounding supplies until Jeannie finished with "and will that be instant or overnight shipping?"  
  
"Overnight will be good enough." Harris said. "Instant would be kind of hard to explain, even though the folks here seem pretty open-minded." She exchanged a few more pleasantries with Daniel and Xander and then excused herself to take another call.  
  
"So the Mormons are big players in the war against the supernatural?" Daniel asked.  
  
"Way it was explained to me was that 99.9% of them aren't, just like 99.9% of the state of California still thinks Sunnydale High blew up because of a freak gas leak. The story I've heard is that when they first started moving to Utah territory, they ran into a Big Bad level supernatural somewhere in Nebraska. That Steve Young guy..."  
  
"Do you mean Brigham Young?"  
  
"Yeah, Brigham Young, I guess. He took Big Bad down, and a very small group of his followers were supposed to make sure it stayed dead and buried. Jeannie and Chuck are decendants of those people who were supposed to, and still do, keep watch on the most boring possible spot in Nebraska, and who also make sure that the rest of the Church not only doesn't get eaten by monsters, but doesn't even have to know they exist.. Kind of like how some other Churches still have exorcists on staff for just in case." Harris glanced down on a list he had been scrawling as he talked to Jeannie. "Hope I got enough crossbow bolts. They said there wasn't normal contact with Taiga, and I'd hate it if we went there without enough firepower."  
  
"It sounded like you ordered enough that everyone on Cheyenne Mountain could spend the week playing Robin Hood, and there would still be leftovers."  
  
"I just want to make sure, you know. My large repetoire of witty quips is supposed to hide the fact that I'd get scared when we'd go into a fight with a Big Bad because it was so hard to be really sure we were right about what we could use to beat it. And the group I ran with knew somewhere between a hundred and a thousand times more about the supernaturals than I do. It's some large scale practical joke from the Powers That Be that all of a sudden I'm the one who's supposed to be an expert on this all." At that moment, Daniel noticed how very young Harris looked. He couldn't be more than a couple years past 20.  
  
"You were expert enough to guide SG-1 though, as you called it, Chez Vampire without anyone getting hurt, and you got us information there and from Brophy that could save lives both here and on Taiga." Daniel continued the pep talk. "You drew on what you knew when you took down the PX-782 predator. And from what you've said and left unsaid, you had to be pretty good in order to make it to your eighteenth birthday in the most dangerous city in America. You're doing good work here."  
  
"Sir, that's an even better pep talk than what my old swim coach could give." Xander smiled a bit. "All it needs now is a Go! Fight! Stake vampires on Taiga tonight."  
  
"Or something like that." Daniel said. 


	12. 12

Leale dreamed.  
  
She walked in the bright yellow sunlight through pasture land just outside the village. As she traced her path along Coldwater Creek, sheep grazed on the hillside. She briefly wondered where the shepard and his dogs were. Not that there really had been much in the way of predators anywhere near the village since she was young, but that it was getting close to lambing season, and you really did need to keep an extra eye on the flocks that time of year. She glanced around the creek bed, gathered up her skirt, found a long striaght stick she could use as a staff if need be, and started to head toward toward the sheep.  
  
"Hey there!"  
  
Leale turned back to the creek. A young woman her age stood on the other side of the water. She looked, Leale tried to figure out to describe it. She just looked wrong. At first glance, she was dressed like a tennant farmer: a plain, unembellished green shirt; blue trousers, heavy boots on her feet. A woman working in the fields might wear trousers for warmth and convenience, but once she was done with her tending would rush to put a skirt on. Unless she was too poor to have a set of clothes to wear around the village. But this woman was not wearing clothing made from a poor family's homespun cloth. The shirt and trouser fabric looked to be as fine a linen as you could buy in the bigger cities of Taiga. Her boots were unmarred leather sewn together with as tight a hand as any shoemaker could manage. In her ears, she wore small red gemstones. Whether they were ruby or garnet, they were something a rich village merchant would give his daughter for her wedding dowery. Her unrestained long blonde hair blew in the breeze. A laborer would have tied that back to keep it out of her face. The woman just did not belong in that place.  
  
"Hello." Leale said. "You are.... are you one of the people the cantor told us about? The ones who came to Taiga from another star?"  
  
"Yes, I am. Unfortunately, I'm not the only one here, and that, my friend is the problem." She reached into a pocket, pulling out two candles and passing one over the creek to Leale. "Going to get dark soon here. Need to pass the light to you."  
  
"Thank you." Leale took the candle from her.  
  
"Don't thank me just yet. A great danger has come to Taiga. There was a long closed door that had been opened. The problem was not that the door had been opened, but that something that was never supposed to come through that door did so. And it came into House Taiga to take the cheese. The one that became two becomes three so that what came through that door can be balanced with one who can control it." The woman paused and breathed on the wick of the candle. As Leale watched, the wick caught fire from that breath. Leale tried to take a step back from the creek bed, then stopped. The woman didn't seem Goa'uld-cursed or evil, like the creature that had attacked the village or whatn had become. She merely offered Leale the flame. Leale reached across the creek with her own candle, accpeting the flame as it moved across the divide.  
"Take up our quarrel with the foe. To you from failing hands we throw the torch. Be yours to hold it high." As the woman spoke those words, the sky went dark and the stream changed. Water no longer seemed to flow through it, but instead something that looked like ice mixed with blue flame in liquid form. It curled around rocks, swirled in eddies, and seemed to dance where water should be. The light from the candles stood red and stark against the blue. "What do you mean?" Leale had to yell over the increasing sounds of the crashing creek. "My allowed time here is done. Another will come to tell you more." The creek rose from its banks in a wall, seperating Leale from the woman. "Another? Another what?" The blue wall continued to rise.  
"Fear not, he will know you." The woman screamed as the blue rose past her head. And Leale bolted awake in a tangle of quilts.

* * *

Taiga was turning out to be a very good place for an undead life, John Shore thought as he lounged in bed, looking at the body of his bride next to him. Though a mix of good old-fashioned terror and intimidation, the producing of the right offspring, and some careful political moves, Shore figured he was already in control of more than half of Four Rivers' underworld economy. It was only a matter of time before he owned everything underground both literally and figuratively. And then there was Danine, he thought as he watched her shift on the bed next to him. The last thing he had wanted to do in the Rivers was get married, but the best and quickest was to gain control of the pickpockets' guild had been to kill the old guildmaster, marry his daughter, and rule through her. But Danine had been a revelation: beautiful, loyal smart, devious, indifferent to her father's fate, and posessing the instinct and knowledge so that they could quickly consolidate the power in the city. "Beloved, you're still awake." she whispered to him. "What are you thinking of?"  
"The prostitutes on the east side. The best way to bring them into the fold." he said.  
"I think you've got them scared good now after what the lads did to their clients a couple nights ago. They can't work if their men are scared to walk the streets at night away from accusing eyes." "But I still have to use the lads carefully. Don't need the church investigating too carefully into what happened. A couple of slit throats, we can bribe the guards to look the other way. Too many though, and the church brings in those who aren't so easily bribed, and who may be smart enough to figure out more about us than we want. Notice how we've seen more and more people wearing ankhs lately."  
"Well if you aren't sure at how it will go, could you at least get the whores scared enough to give us a nice dinner tonight? The east side, they have connections to send you a nice sweet young one. I know you say you can't tell, but I really do like the taste of a virgin." Danine's face was hopeful.  
"Since you asked, my dead, since you asked I will. I'll do everything I can to keep you happy." He coulds almost see her fangs poking out as she imagined what would happen shortly.

* * *

(Short one here. But it works out to be the logical place for a chapter break. Next part will be longer. "Take up our quarrel...." is cribbed from "In Flanders Fields" by John McCrae) 


	13. 13

(Apologies for the delay. I got distracted by first by a hurricane and then OD'ed on Farscape in preparation for watching the miniseries.-s.)

"Hello, campers. Are we all set for today's hike?" Jack said as he walked into the briefing room. Teal'C, Carter, and Daniel sat at the conference table almost buried behind a stack of ceramic mugs and paper coffee cups.

"Morning, um, evening, um morning there, sir." Harris said as he rose from his spot at the table.

"You can relax, Harris." The Airman sat back down. "I see we're getting well prepared for out 0200 Mountain Standard Time departure window."

"From the information we have on Taiga's solar system, that window should put us thorugh the Gate on the other side about a half hour past dawn, and maximize the amount of daylight we have to safely assess the situation and make contact with the people of Taiga before nightfall." Carter said.

"I know that in theory, but I still reserve the right to be grumpy about it." Jack said. "So who wants to give me the Cliff Notes refresher on Taiga?"

"Climate and biology similar to Scandanavia," Daniel said, sliding into a comfortable role. "Culturally, they're a religous theocracy ruled by what they call the College of Vizcars which is headed by a person named the First Scholar. The Vizcars keep the planet relatively stable. Crime is a problem in some places, but it's been two hundred of our years since they've had a full scale war. Reports from SG-5 and SG-9 describe the Taigans as curious and cautiously welcoming of new ideas. Technologically, they were trying to develop a working steam engine when we first visited, and have done some trading of bio samples from their world for knowledge from ours. Note in one of the reports about how the medical side of the Vizcars is now manufacturing antibiotics on a fairly large scale from what they learned from us."

"It sounds like a nice place in a Walton's mountain sort of way." Harris said.

"And now we get to wipe the vampires off the mountain and teach John Boy how to stake any ones we miss." Jack said.

"Mary Ellen and Erin too." Harris said. "Mary Ellen's actually the one with the big stake."

"I guess I'm the only one who watched Eight is Enough instead?" Carter said.

"Looks like it, Sam. I think even Teal'C's seen the Christmas episode." Daniel said.

"It was interesting to see how Earth families lived fifty years ago." Teal'C said. Jack glanced at his watch.

"It's time to saddle up cowpokes since it's just about time for our departure window. Looks like any more thoughts on 70s family dramas are going to have to wait."

"Travelers!" Daniel heard the cry as SG-1 came through the Stargate to Taiga. He looked around the small clearing in front of the Gate. Three Taigan soldiers stood in front of them. Their hands were near scabbards but weapons were not yet drawn. "Hands away from your weapons. Don't more or we'll shoot you." Daniel blinked, and the dozen more soldiers perched in trees, arrows drawn and ready to fly came into focus.

"Think the vampires have been causing damage on Taiga?" Carter said as the group raised hands clear of their own guns and crossbows.

"I wouldn't bet a pint of B positive against that idea." O'Neill said. "Guys, believe it or not, we've know what your problem is and came to Taiga to help you take care of it."

"You say you know of the destruction others of your kind have brought to Taiga. How are we supposed to know that you aren't bringing some greater plague to our world?"

"Dr. Jackson." Harris whispered. "Those dudes are wearing pretty big necklaces for a bunch of people who weren't supposed to be much into the bling-bling."

"Shape of an ankh. Commonly used as a religous symbol." Daniel quietly replied.

"Yep. Think they're starting to figure out vampire repellants?"

"Makes sense." Daniel focused his attention on the soldier that looked to be in charge. "Jack, and Cantor, is it?"

"First Cantor Darvil." The leading soldier confirmed.

"The vampires, the evil we accidentally allowed onto Taiga, they flee from the touch of any sort of holy symbol. We think you've learned that much."

"That we have." Darvil said.

"This." Daniel slowly moved his hands toward his neck. He hooked two fingers under the collar of his jacket, snagging a chain pulling the crucifix free so it rested on the outside of his coat. "This is one of the holiest symbols in all the religions of Earth. The evil ones can't even stand to touch it for an instant, much less wear one next to their skin. We all wear the crosses as protection just as it looks like your own people wear the ankh now." To either side of him, the rest of the team also carefully revealed their own crosses.

"And we have only your word that your symbols are for the protection of good against evil." Darvil eyes the cross with suspicion.

"So what can we do to show you we aren't the bad guys." O'Neill said.

"You can start by laying hands on one of the ankhs. None of the Goa'uld-cursed have been able to come within a cubit of the symbol of light." Davril said. "Kemmet!" The soldier next to Darvil pulled the ankh from around his neck. He stepped forward stopping in front of Teal'c.

"Hold this." Teal'c held the ankh, the chain spilling over the sides of his hands. A few seconds later, the soldier removed it from the Jaffa's hands. "No harm came to him, sir."

"So he may still be Goa'uld cursed in some ways, but not in the way that has brought evil to Taiga." Darvil said half to himself. Check the rest of them, Kemmet." The amulet was passed to the rest of SG-1 each team member handling the amkh with similar non-results.

"Sir?" the Taigan soldier said.

"I will not apologise for caution toward your people." Darvil said. "It is my duty to make my world safe for my kind. However, may we start this conversation again? I am Darvil, First Cantor of Taiga, and these are my men." He nodded toward the soldiers in the trees. SG-1 relaxed a bit, putting arms back at their sides.

"And I am Colonel Jack O'Neill U.S. Air Force, Earth. This is the rest of the SG-1 team: Major Samantha Carter, Dr. Daniel Jackson, Teal'c, and Airman Alexander Harris."

"Come then, SG-1. There is much you need to discuss with the College of Vizcars and we want to make it to Greenridge before darkness." With a wave he directed the team down a path through the forest.

"So here is the map of Taiga of the city of Greenridge and the Greenridge province surrounding it." Davril unrolled the heavy, hand drawn document across a table in the College library, anchoring it to the table on the ends to keep it from rolling back on itself. The meeting between SG-1 and the College of Vizcars had had its share of arguing and accusations but in the end, calm heads had decided to send SG-1 and a small group of Darvil and his men to locate and destroy Lt. John Shore and any other vampires he had created.

"And here is the path that your John Shore decided to follow: the villages of Treaty Oak, Oak Ridge, Seventh Tree, Northslope, Pine Valley, ..." As Darvil named each village, he placed a marker over that town on the map. Xander listened, thinking that the Taigans really weren't that great at naming villages. The list sounded like street names in some sort of Stepford Country Club development. "Our last report of an attack came near the village of Maple Ferry." The last marker was placed at the edge of the map just south of where four rivers seemed to come together. "Nothing since then. No suspicous deaths, no burials where the dead rose back up again."

"Are there any cities north of the water?" O'Neill said."Or are you getting into the 'here be the bloodsuckers and dragons' territory?"

"The city of Four Rivers." Darvil said. "It is a major trading port in the region. Almost forty thousand people live in the city and its surroundings."

"They're in the city then." Xander said, half wondering why someone would name a town after a baseball stadium in Pittsburgh. "Unless there's a very special reason for them to be there, vampires don't like small town life, and as far as we know there just isn't a reason on Taiga for them to go all Green Acres. Too much of that whole chamber of commerce everyone knows their neighbors stuff means that people notice when someone goes missing and gets themselves violently deceased. Cities, you've got a bigger number of victims to chose from, and it's easier to hide a large number of bodies."

"Kemmet, can you pull the Four Rivers city map?" Darvil said. The soldier rerolled the first map, exchanged it for another on one of the shelves, and rolled out the second map. "This is our most recent map of Four Rivers, about four years old. There is some new development along the Kaleete River, it's the nature of trade cities to keep growing, but it's mostly complete."

"How are good are your people at building sewers?" Xander glanced around the room, still a bit uncomfortable in the role of vampire expert.

"One of the roles of the College to strongly encourage all towns to make sure that waste is moved away from households and businesses. A person cannot cleanse themselves spritually if they surround themselves in filth." Darvil said. "Why do you ask?"

"Because when you've got caves, sewers and basements and other open places underground, vampires like to hang out there. No need to have to worry about that pesky sunlight and turning to dust problem." Xander said.

"So the strategy is to go to Four Rivers and start digging around underground in hopes the vampires are there?"

"Seems like the best plan." O'Neill said. "We follow the route that Shore took, and ask questions along the way to see if there's any thing more that the people who were attacked in those villages remember."

"It will start getting dark in about half an hour and I say too dangerous to move about then just in case one of your vampires is still in the Greenridge. Let me find a novice to show you to the College guest house and we can leave at first light in the morning." Darvil said, sticking his head out of the library door to summon assitance.

"Tell me the Taigans have some good local equivalent to coffee, and I'll be a happy woman." Carter said.

"We do have a morning drink that helps awaken one's senses." Kemmet said as a young boy entered the library. "Asher here will show you to quarters."

"Think their coffee is any worse than what they serve at the mess?" O'Neill said.

"I'm not sure. That's a tough standard to top." Daniel said.

As SG-1 filed out of the library, Xander head Teal'c faintly humming.

"dum-dum-dum-de-dum-dum..." He grinned at the Jaffa, who looked innocently back at him. Never would have guessed that the other man was some sort of Nick at Nite fan.


	14. 14

It was the second day of SG-1's hike through the forests of the Greenridge in pursuit of vampires, and Xander was already wishing that the Taigans had learned to build trains. He would have been sick enough of walking already; that the road had turned entirely into mud made him even more cranky. And he wasn't sure how SG-1 and the cantors would take what would have been his normal grumbling about the mud, what passed for coffee on Taiga, or how the sky and the birds were the wrong color so he couldn't even vent a little. Fortunately, according to Kemmet, they were just shy of Seventh Tree where they would spend the night. And just maybe he wouldn't be dreaming of quicksand while he tried to sleep. 

"Hail travelers!" The call came from a path branching off the main roadway. Xander stopped and started to reach for Lucille as the rest of SG-1 also moved hands toward weapons. However the cantors seemed to recognize the voice and the man that followed from behind the trees.

"Hail, Cantor Salim." Darvil replied "You can relax there, Colonel. Salim is one of my people."

"First Cantor." Salim bowed before Darvil. Part of Xander's brain noted that the cantor could use some Rogaine. "It is an honor to see you in my district."

"You are headed to Seventh Tree?" Darvil said. "If so, you must join our party. It's not safe to be traveling alone these days. Come and walk with us." The group started moving through the muck again.

"Part of my normal circuit, First Cantor. One child naming, which is always a pleasure. Two divorce mediations, which never are." Salim sighed. "Just how hard is it to follow the teachings and stay faithful to the one you mary?"

"It is a question that has generated much debate but never an answer ever since our people came to Taiga." Darvil replied. At that moment Salim's eyes widened as he really noticed SG-1 for the first time. "Yes, we have guests come through the Stargate again. They are here in pursuit of those we thought brought the Goa'uld curse to Taiga. They say it is no Goa'uld curse at all, but a condition where the soul is cast out of a dying body and a sort of demon takes on the form of the dead."

"It sounds much like the Goa'uld parasite in some ways, taking over the will of the body, using it as a host." Salim said.

"But very different." Xander said, cautiously easing into the conversation. "No physical, snake-like critters taking over your brain." He hoped he wasn't insulting Teal'c with the description. "Just a demon from another dimension looking for a nice home on Earth, but taking a wrong turn in Albequerque."

"What has happened with the demons your people brought to Taiga is different indeed than what our records tell us to expect from the Goa'uld." Salim said as the group approached the Seventh Tree gate.

"Salim is one of the people who helped the College figure out how to kill your vampires." Darvil said, holding up a decorated staff for the guards to see. "Hail the gate. First Cantor Darvil, Cantor Salim, and my party desire passage into the village."

"Since you're with Cantor Salim, you're free to enter Seventh Tree." One guard said as the other opened the gate. "And just in time for the naming celebration too."

"You figured out how to kill vampires on your own?" Xander asked.

"Not on my own." Salim said. "I had help from other villagers here."

Salim might have said more, but Xander didn't hear the cantor. Instead, he saw her. The girl in the dress with red flowers laughed as she walked across the village square, some sort of decorations for the birthday party in hand. The red of the dress stood out against tan skin and dark eyes. She was the fourth player at the card table; the one who had followed Faith. The one who didn't know how to play the game.

"That which must be Called can be Called from across the stars." Suddenly the dreams made sense. Xander knew why the PTBs had sent him to Taiga. The Taigans were not a stupid people. They had figured out a lot about vampires, but there was no way in a million years they would have figured out this, and many more would have died.

"That which must be Called?" Salim asked.

"Sir, do your people have prophecies?" Xander asked. He must have stopped because it registered that SG-1 and the cantors were now all looking at him.

"We have many prophecies and predictions for the future. Most of them talk about the return of the Goa'uld." Darvil said.

"Same song, different verse." Xander said. "I'm not a prophet or a seer, and I'm glad of that since from what I've seen that's a pretty crappy job most of the time. But there are some, um, people who want me to pass a prophecy-like message to you, and when they ask you to do something, you do it because you don't want the responsibility for Ragnarok on your head." The Colonel was now shooting him the sort of look that promised dire consequences the next time SG-1 got a couple minutes of quiet awayfrom the Taigans.

"Ragnarok?" Salim said.

"An Earth legend describing the end of the world." Dr. Jackson said.

"But not this world, not this time." Xander hastily added. "You here, this world has a chance to get rid of the vampires early on, never let the situation with them get bad like it did on Earth, not let them live long enough to figure out how to summon other really big and bad demons to Taiga. And the message I've got is supposed to help you do that."

"We will consider your words." Darvil said. Xander was really starting to feel the eyes as laser beam treatments from the rest of SG-1.

"Okay. When the vampires come, there will be one girl who is Called to fight them. In every generation, there is a chosen one. She is known as the Slayer. She will stand first against the vampires, the demons, and the forces of darkness, but she doesn't need to stand alone." Xander said. He wasn't going to let a certain bit of Watcher's Council policy reappear on Taiga. "She has been given gifts to help her fight the vampires. She's strong. Even stronger than a vampire or a Jaffa. She can feel a vampire's presence near her. And sometimes, the Powers That Be will send her dreams to tell her how and where the vampires are."

"Always a woman?" Carter said.

"Yes, ma'am. Always female."

"I think I like that idea." She smiled a little.

"Airman, you didn't tell us you were in the prophecy business, even on a part time basis." the Colonel said.

"I didn't really think I was. I had a dream where I got lectured about how humans shouldn't let vampires through Stargates, but I missed the rest of the message because They never really tell you exactly what they want, just the usual weird cryptic phrases."

"Prophecy can be like that." Darvil said.

"Airman, so why are you now talking about Slayers on Taiga?" O'Neill said. "And we are going to have a talk about your failure to report contact with a non-human race when things settle down."

"Sorry, sir. With the vampires they just wanted to make sure SGC knew the danger could cause. With the rest, I just figured out the message and who the Slayer is, sir. It's the girl in the red dress over there."

"The girl with dark hair to her shoulders? Her name is Leale." Salim said.

"You talked about her when you reported to the College." Darvil said. "She was the one who learned that you could kill the Goa'uld-cursed, the vampires by burning." He started to say more, but was interrupted by the appearance of a young couple, babe in arms, who quickly moved toward the group to claim Salim's attention.

"First Cantor, is there some place where my team can freshen up a bit while your people are taking care of the christening?" O'Neill asked.

"Seventh Tree is too small to have a proper inn, but a couple of the local merchants lend out rooms to travelers." Salim said as he made silly faces at the baby. "Kemmet, you've done this circuit. Could you take our guests over to the Wool Merchants' Guild offices? They've got space for our guests. We will meet you back there to discuss plans after the naming." Kemmett nodded, and SG-1 made their way through the growing party on the town square. Xander tried to get another glimpse of the girl, Leale, but she had vanished from the site, and he didn't think it was time to go chasing after her just yet. Salim would know where to find her, and Xander suspected he was already so far in SG-1's dog house he could feel the Milkbone crumbs digging under his feet.

After crossing the village square, Kemmet led them into a large stone building. Inside was a large room strewn with everything from piles of raw wool to intricately knotted tapestries on the walls. "Priceless antiques those are now." Kemmet noticed Xander suddenly intensely staring at one of the tapestries. "Since the factories started producing woven goods, very few people do that kind of work by hand anymore. It's good that most anyone can afford to buy a decent carpet these days, but there was something to be said for owning something made by hand and not by machine."

"It's a pretty common sentiment in industrial countries- once things are mass produced, the new factory made goods are seen as better than the old hand made items. But over time, the hand made items are seen as valuable again. They're unique and reminders of what is romanticized as a kinder, simpler age." Dr. Jackson said.

"In our case, Taiga will be talking about the glory days before the Earthers and their vampires came along and upset the wool cart." Kemmet said. "Yes, there are good things that have happened because of the Stargate. I've seen the miracles Kelene's tinctures have worked. But the changes are coming faster than what makes most people comfortable. I wonder just how different the world will be by the time the child named today reaches adulthood."

"Probably very different. Once a civilization reaches their industrial age like Taiga has, growth and change come quickly."

"But not so quickly to cause too much strife or dissent, one hopes. I'm going to go back for the naming celebration. Privy and wash sink are down the hall, second door to the right."

"Thanks, Kemmet." O'Neill said. "We brought our own lunch with us, but if there's any ice cream and cake you could slip to us after the party?"

"The villagers at these celebrations always make enough to feed the crowd thrice over. I'll be sure to appropriate some for your group." He said as he left the guild offices.

"Airman Harris, you withheld information from the team. That's a pretty serious offense." O'Neill said. Xander straightened his shoulders as he got ready to defend himself.

"Sir, I didn't mean to hurt anyone. Apparently, way back when, The Powers That Be, not the Joint Chiefs, the other Ones played some sort of shadow muppet role in a big huge battle that was supposed to prevent the demons and Goa'uld from forming some sort of Legion of Doom level alliance together. They were fuzzy with the details but the end result seemed to have featured the Goa'uld getting kicked off Earth and the worst of the demons getting kicked back to the demon realms and hell and all that. They weren't too thrilled with SGC digging back up the Stargate but They're big on free will for most of the human population. Then the vampires got through the Gate. The PTBs wanted someone on the inside they could talk to in order to make sure no more demons got sent outbound. Due to some misadventures in my reckless youth, They know who I am, and that I've spent a couple years doing my part to help the Slayer reduce the local vampire population. So they picked me. Go me."

"And you weren't going to say anything about this?"

"Sir it didn't seem like there was a good time to. And I don't know exactly what They are, but they aren't aliens trying to get a Foothold on Earth, and it seemed like they were on the same page as the Air Force. Next time they send a message, or if I hear about a Polgara demon skulking around Colorado Springs, I promise to let you know."

"What about the Slayer?" Carter said.

"That's where they weren't as clear. I get dreams of rabbits, Australia, card games, underwear, and Frankfort airport. Only thing missing was the cheese. I honestly didn't figure it out until I saw Leale. She was in the card game dream with the other Slayers. It all made sense then as much as prophecy ever really makes sense." The discussion went on from there. SG-1 pepperd Xander with some tough questions about Slayers, Powers, and where his primary allegiance was but Xander thought he managed to convince them he was first and foremost SGC's bitch. Just when the questions had wound down, and a MRE lunch had been consumed, Salim and Darvil appeared at the guild office, the girl Leale in tow. The two cantors nodded their respect toward O'Neill.

"And this is Leale daughter of Kerns. She was there the night the vampires first came. The men who were on watch duty that night said she drove one of them off on her own when it took another three men to drive away the other." Salim said. "Then the night Owen rose from his grave, she was the one who killed him again by burning him." Salim said, his statement a question to Xander.

"I'm Xander." He wondered if he was supposed to shake her hand. "I've fought what your people call Goa'uld cursed for many years. They're called vampires on Earth. They're a kind of demon. Sometimes the gods send us extra help in fighting them." He glanced around the clutter room, noticing a basket of reddish-purple fruits slightly smaller than limes. Walking over to the basket, he reached for the fruits. "Catch this." Giving her only an instant to react, he started to hurl the fruit at her, first close to her hands then faster and further out. Her hands, moving at inhumanly fast speeds, quickly snared four fruit in each hand. "Sometimes the gods just kind of draft the help without really asking."

"Airman Harris has some questions for you, Leale. Don't worry. You've done nothing wrong, but rather there may be things you can do to help put Taiga right again." Salim said.

"Okay," she said.

"Could a normal person have caught the fruit like that?" he asked. "Normal people can't move with that sort of speed and agility. I'm guessing you feel like you're stronger than you used to be as well."

"Yes, I am. How did you know?" He saw Darvil nodding that her reactions were quicker than what a human should be capable of.

"Saw you in a dream and then saw you here in the daylight." He noticed her go pale at the mention of dreams.

"You know about the dreams?" she said. Salim looked sharply at her.

"Leale, you didn't tell me about dreams."

"At first I thought it was just normal nightmares from father's death and the evils that followed that. That they'd go away over time. But they haven't gone away; they've just changed. It's like there's something I'm supposed to do now, but I need to find the cheese first and I don't know what the rules are."

"We're both conscripted by the gods." Xander said. "Me to tell you those rules you don't know yet."

"And what am I supposed to do?" she said.

"Kill vampires. You've been given the strength, the speed, and the agility to kill the vampires infesting Taiga when it would be too dangerous for normal humans to do so. The vampires know people like you as Slayers- the ones the Powers That Be call into service and send out to slay the vampires." She took a deep breath which turned into a sigh as she exhaled.

"Leale?" Salim said.

"What he says is true. I feel it deep in my bones that it is. Northing's felt normal since the night my father died. I haven't felt normal. And it all makes sense now. And you're probably going to want me to wear nasty peasant trousers like the other girl in the dream, aren't you?"

"I've seen Slayers do their job while wearing dresses, but you have to be careful to not trip over the hem. Easier to start off wearing pants in the beginning." Xander said, feeling that Slayers of all ages and origins definitely had more in common with each other than just super strength and the spidey sense.


	15. 15

Xander picked through his MRE, digging out something that was allegedly a chocolate bar. According to Kemmet, even with a slow breakfast as they waited for Leale and Salim to finish their training session they would be making it to Four Rivers right around lunch time, and staking always seemed to go a bit better when he didn't have to worry about his stomach growling. Not that the candy bar was really a candy bar but more of some sort of device deisgned to deliver the maximum number of calories into his bloodstream while providing the minimum amount of taste so he could choke it down. Unlike Leale, who had turned out to be the geunine article real deal.

He looked across the clearing in front of the village of High Springs. The cantors had turned out to have a fair amount of combat training as part of their cantoring lessons, and Salim had taken over part of Leale's Slayer lessons. Now Xander watched the two as they circled each other. He advanced, she blocked and countered his attack. She kicked, and he dodged the blows in turn. It was the kind of dance he had seen Giles and Buffy move through probably a kazillion times, and it made him a bit homesick to see that familiar tune play itself out. Watcher and Slayer working together as it should be. He just needed to do what he could to nudge the Vizcars in a direction so that hopefully they wouldn't repeat the abuses the Watcher's Council on Earth had inflicted on the Slayers over the years. The dance continued until Leale connected a bit too sharply with Salim's bicep and he bowed out, grimacing in pain.

Teal'c, the other person who had been working with Leale on combat training, effortlessly slid into Salim's place. Xander wouldn't have thought to ask the Jaffa for help in that way. He still wasn't sure about rebel Jaffa ettiquette and just how different they might be from normal humans, and didn't want to offend the man somehow, but Teal'c had volunteered for the gig unprompted. It was working out well since he could push Leale and get pushed back by her harder than any normal human could. Xander gnawed on the faux bar, trying to pretend it tasted food-like as he watched the Teal'c and Leale continue the exercise. She was really learning how to use her Slayer strength and agility, striking furiously at the bigger man. Xander was glad she was a quick study. Battle was coming, and he wasn't going to lose any more Slayers on his watch.

"Circle up cowpokes." Colonel O'Neill yelled from behind Xander, bringing Leale's practice to a close. "Today's the day we round up those doggies and drive them into Dodge City." Leale and Teal'c stopped, bowed to each other, and headed back into the village to quickly gather their things. As Xander stashed his wrapper in his pack and adjusted Lucille in her back sheath, he found himself thinking that if the Colonel had been twenty five years younger and not quite so damn military, he just might have fit in with the Scoobies.

* * *

Four Rivers. A real city filled with a swarm of people buying and selling and eating and laughing on a scale that nearly overwhelmed Leale as the party passed along its crowded main streets. The adults glanced at the mix of cantors and Earthers in their strange tree-colored garb and went back to their business of haggling over fruit or wool prices. The children playing near the streets stared longer at the group before returning to their games. A brief wave of self-consciousness swept over her as the village girl took it all in before she remembered her fathers' words from a plan for her that now seemed so long ago and so far away.

Four Rivers. I agree with you that there are no acceptable male candidates for marriage in the village your age. And since I would not see my daughter wed to just be wed, then we must send you to someplace where there are allegedly many of those acceptable males. I have cousins in Four Rivers who will take you in there and help you in the search. And that search will surely be a success, beloved daughter, since you are strong and beautiful and better than any five of the city girls. She had believed her father's words, his own faith in her when he said that.

And now here she was walking the streets of Four Rivers wearing a farm girl's trousers not in search of a husband but for the man, no the creature, ultimately responsible for her father's death. She sighed.

"Everything okay there?" Airman Harris, call me Xander, said.

"It just wasn't supposed to be like this. I was supposed to come here to find a husband. You know, pretty dresses and the only way to get hurt would be accidentally spilling a cup of tea on my lap. Not chasing down scary Goa'uld-like beings and having to worry about the concept of worse than dead."

"No reason you can't still have a boyfriend, or a husband if that's how you want it. Don't let the cantors try to tell you otherwise. Though sometimes you scare a couple of boyfriend candidates when it comes out that you can bench press a Volkswagen." She was left wondering exactly what press and wagon he was talking about, but got the general picture from his context. "But those are probably the guys you want to scare off anyways. You want someone who can accept you for who you are."

"You know, you're starting to sound like my mother there. Not like it's a bad thing. Just kind of odd since you're closer to my age than hers and you're from another planet and all."

"I've got a lot of female friends back home so I've watched, learned, and been their shoulder to cry on about boyfreind problems too many times. Buffy alone, she's one of the Slayers on Earth, could write a book on falling for the wrong guys. So what else am I supposed to be saying when I'm playing the part of Mom?" They continued walking, and she wondered just how much longer it would be before they moved out of the sun and into the places below ground.

"Look beyond the boys who think your dowery is material things and know the real gifts you give them lie in your head, heart, and hands. And learn a trade or craft. Have something you can sell that doesn't depend on the crops or wool harvest for the year."

"Do you have one, a craft?" After they turned right to another street, they could then see the Cantor's Four Rivers courthouse.

"We make women's hats. Not just plain straw, but fancy with all the beads, and dyed feathers and ribbons you can sew onto the base of it. Not many women or their husbands here can afford gold and jewels. But the hats we sell glisten almost as much; wear one and feel like you're grand enough to go dance at the wedding of even the richest merchants' son or daughter. And it was more like play to make them than real work. " She grinned, thinking back on how it felt good to have one of the hats she made turn out perfect and beautiful. "I guess Slaying is my new trade."

"I'd keep up the hats business though if you have fun doing it. Tell your Salim that all Slay, no play just isn't a healthy way to go about your job."

"Because the Earther vampire expert said so? Neat. I mean Salim's a friend and all, but he is a cantor and all and those guys tend to think they know everything even when they don't." She made a face as they approached the courthouse door.

"Leale, SG-1, we're here." Darvil said. "We can leave our big packs at the courthouse, and gear up with what we need for the trip to the sewers." The group headed through the doorway and into a reception room.

"One more thing, Leale. Always hit the bathroom, loo, restroom, privy or whatever you guys call it before going out on patrol. Cause a full bladder can be a dangerous distraction when you're out on vampire patrol, and the whole duck behind a tombstone thing to take care of it can give them just enough time to sneak up behind you. Not that I've got any personal experience with that or anything..."

"If you say so, Xander."


	16. 16

"Bait? We can't let you be our bait, Harris." Carter said. The crowd of SG-1, Darvil's people, and Salim and Leale sat around a table in the Four Rivers cathedral rectory plotting out their vampire erradication strategy. More maps were spread about; they showed known sewer lines, cesspools and caves below the city. The Taigans, at least those in charge on the world, seemed to have a real fascination with maps.

"Ma'am, I'm actually very good vampire bait. They see me coming and think 'Yeah, he's harmless and probably not too bright. Be easy to catch.' so they're more likely to try to jump me than someone like Teal'c who looks like he could fight back a little. Done it hundreds of times, and I'm not dead or undead yet."

"And if on the five hundred and first time, the pointy tooth ones get lucky? You're our vampires expert. I don't want to lose you, at least not until we track down Lt. Shore." O'Neill said.

"When it comes to vampires, there are a lot of people who know a lot more than I do. They're like Yoda or Ben Kenobi and I'm all Luke during the farmboy years." Xander said.

"And here I was thinking you were Chewbacca." O'Neill said.

"Nah, sir, Chewie's better played by another old friend of mine. If anything happens to me here, call.... no you can't call them, they've still got those military trust issues and if I'm not there to explain, it'll be ugly. If anything happens to me here have Dr. Jackson call Big Buck Chuck's and they can hook you up with a real vampire and scary stuff expert. But only use ones that will accept cash, checks, or Diner's Club. Those alternate forms of payment some of the experts will ask for, well the payback can get ugly."

"You still aren't going first alone, Airman." O'Neill said, emphasizing that last word.

"What if I got with him?" Leale spoke at the table for the first time.

"Leale, no." Salim said.

"According to Xander, this is the part where I ask if you want to arm wrestle in order to prove I'm strong enough to do this. Salim, this is what I was called to do, just like you've got your vocation as a cantor. Colonel O'Neill, this is my world, this is my fight, and I'm going to be protecting it when your people are long gone. It starts now with me. Care to put your elbow on the table?"

"Just because you're strong doesn't mean you're ready for this kind of fight." He said, even though he had seen how she had held her own during the combat drills.

"I think she is ready, ColonelO'Neill." Teal'c said.

"She fights like a man who has been training for years. And yet the vampires won't see what she is capable of until it is too late for them." Salim said, not sounding terribly happy about that. O'Neill got the feeling that even though he was one of the people technically in charge of the vampire staking, the decision to put Leale on the front line was moving out of his hands. Even though he didn't like it, putting Harris and Leale at the front of the assault made the most sense.

"Okay, we'll go with you two up front. Harris keep an eye on Leale." Because he didn't want to have to be writing up an incident report about how a civillian, how a sixteen year old girl had died in the middle of the mess. Bad enough that they were having to leave behind Darvil and his men because Harris was convinced that too large of a spelunking party would spook the vampires into running from the tunnels and they would never end up finding Shore then.

"Sir, usually it's the Slayer who ends up keeping the eye on me." Harris said. Leale gave him a small smile.

* * *

"So I get to keep it, even when your people are up and gone from Taiga?" Leale said, toggling the lantern-style flashlight on for about the fiftieth time in that particular tunnel. "Wondertastic!"

"Sure. They're pretty cheap on Earth. But the battery, the energy source that makes the light, it only lasts a certain number of hours, and turning it off and on like that makes the battery run down quicker." Xander said. Not to mention that the flicker, flicker, flicker off, on, off, on, was starting to make him feel like he was courting some sort of brain seizure. "Just leave it on for now, please no more flickering, and you'll get to use it longer."

"I'll do that."

"Sir, are we getting close to there yet?" He yelled back down the tunnel. Salim and the rest of SG-1 followed the two, ready for both Xander's questions and to come to their aid when the vampires did start to attack.

"We should be close to the bridge over big sewer river." Dr. Jackson called back. "After that, you're in places the pickpockets like to hide." According to Davril's sources in the city, not only did the pickpockets like to hide in the sewer tunnels, there had been some sort of shake-up within the pickpocket's guild leadership in recent months. So Plan A was to see if a newly underground-loving Shore had somehow tied himself in with the petty theives.

"Thanks, sir."

" I think I'm starting to smell the main storm drain of the city here." Leale tucked the flashlight under one arm, fumbling for something in her pocket. She pulled out a small tin and dabbed something on her nose. "Rose and citrelle tincture. We'd put it on when we had to clean the stables so you smell the flowers instead of the, you know, the stuff that's smelling like it does here. Want some?"

"Might as well try it." He scooped the waxy substance out of the tin and applied as directed. The odor of flower was strong enough to curl his nose hair, but at least it meant he probably wouldn't have to smell the shit too much for a couple of hours. "That is awful strong. Take the hair off my chest if I had any chest hair. Not that you'd want to know that about me."

"My family has a lot of sheep and goats. When we had to bring them inside the stable during snowstorms, it got pretty dirty." She said as the tunnel jogged right.

"Speaking of dirty, I think we found our big drain." Xander said as they came into what looked to be a long, narrow room. The floor of it was a culvert, dirty water flowing to and from points unknown. A small bridge crossed over the culvert. With his free hand, Xander reached to his back and patted; Lucille was securely in her sheath and his other slaying supplies were just where they were supposed to be. "Fortunately, it looks like the bridge is just wide enough for both of us to cross at once so we don't have to argue about who goes first."

"And I think I had my fill or arguing when your people and the cantors were coming up with an attack plan so that's for the good."

"Shall we, then?"

"We shall. And we really should try not to fall in the muck, I think. It would mess up my boots something awful."

"You really are starting to remind me of the other Slayers. It's kind of scary." He said as they made their way across the bridge.

"And would scary be good?" Leale asked, almost skipping to the end of the bridge.

"Scared is what you should be of us." Three men stepped out of the shadows, trying to look menacing but only managing to pull off slightly musty.

"Why is that, pickpocket?" She asked.

"Because we're going to tear your throats out." Strange and telling language from a group of people who were usually not overly violent, but they had to be sure.

"Now!" At Xander's yell, he tossed his lantern down the tunnel to distract the men. He saw Leale's moves mirroring his own as he reached for the holy water balloon by his shoulder. They grabbed, then tossed the balloons at the men, who promptly started to sizzle as blessed water made contact with cursed flesh. "Vampires confirmed!" He could hear the rest of SG-1 charging up behind them as he went for his stake. He dusted the first vampire quickly, glanced sideways to check on Leale, who stabbed her vampire through the heart in a way that suggested she'd been slaying for months, rather than days. She spun around to take on the third vampire, but Xander yelled to her to stop as he pulled out a cross, shoving it toward the man's game face. The vampire, confused that the humans had managed to kill its friends stopped his own charge toward the two.

"No, Leale don't zap that one just yet."

"Why not?" She asked, stake still at the ready. "You said I was supposed to kill them."

"Because," SG-1 and Salim cam over the bridge, and Dr. Jackson tried to talk over the onset of sneezing. "We need that one to take us to his leader." The vampire was quickly surrounded people pointing stakes and crossbows at him.

"And you say I'm the one who always uses the cliches, Daniel." Colonel O'Neill said.

"Nice moves there, Leale." Carter said. "We saw you stake him, and you did well. Oh yeah, Harris, good job too."

"Leader?" the last unliving vampire asked.

"Sire, person in charge, leader hopefully a guy named John Shore." Dr. Jackson continued, his breath slowly coming under control.

"If you promise to let me go, maybe I can tell you where to find John Shore."

"And if you show up where Lt. Shore is, maybe we'll let you go afterwards. Maybe." Xander said.

"You going to kill him? Call me a romantic, but I never did like how he came in here and forced the boss' daughter to marry him. Couldn't say I'd mind if he went back to Earth with the lot of you." The vampire started to babble. Apparently another rule that carried over from Earth to Taiga was that vampires would cheerfully sell out anyone they could if they thought it would help save their own asses.


	17. Chapter 17

In some ways, women really were the same the galaxy over, John Shore thought as he watched Danine drape a mix of fabrics against the walls in an attempt to decorate their underground lair. For all that he didn't care about whether the colors green or gold or purple surrounded him, it seemed to desperately matter to her. But at least she seemed to be enjoying herself, and if different colors indicated different sorts of authority on this world as she had claimed, then who was he to stop her. And there were other things he could definitely enjoy watching, like the way her breasts pulled so pleasantly tightly against the fabric of her dress every time she turned toward him. For all that Brophy had complained about how the women of Taiga dressed, John had come to rather like how every night with Danine had come to feel as though he was getting to unwrap a naughty, naughty Christmas present.

"Master. Master, there are humans coming through the sewers," one of the lackeys from the pickpockets' guild announced as he pushed his way into John and Danine's private rooms.

"Gee, that narrows it down. Are we talking humans that are lost and might be dinner, or humans that are armed and wanting to cause trouble? There is a big difference, you know." John had to admit he wasn't overly impressed with the Taigan education system. City kids here weren't taught anything about how to observe the world around them. Which was good in some ways if you were talking about food, but not so good if it was your own people not seeing the obvious.

"Armed and heading this way. There was a cantor with the group, so someone might have figured out that the cantor's holy objects can do us harm. I told Bervase to try to hold them off while I tried to run to you to tell you of the danger," the lackey said. Maybe he did have some brains if he had managed to convince one of the others to stand their ground and die so he could run away.

"Okay, I'll sound the alarm and gather up the men to fend off the intruders," John sighed. He had known that sooner or later the cantors would become a problem. He just hoped that it would have been a little bit later. "What was your name?"

"Kilen."

"Kilen, I've got a special task for you. I need you to escort my lady to safety. She know the way to our safe area, and will tell you the way."

"John, I'm not leaving you. And besides, you can't go and have all the fun of the hunt."

"Danine, it's just that I can't fight a large group effectively knowing that you're close enough to me to be in danger. You distract me too much. And I promise you that I'll bring back a couple of live ones for you to play with when we're done with the first culling of that herd."

"Promise? And not too beat up. I like them when they're lively," Danine said, a little smile forming on her face at his promise.

After he sent Kilen and Danine to safety, John began to gather his best fighting men into what he thought of as his public throne room. He wished that he had managed to bring his zat with him when he had gone AWOL. He wasn't particularly hungry right now, and it would have been so much simpler to be able to just disintegrate what Danine didn't want to play with.

"Can't say I'm really surprised, but I'm now starting to feel like sewers are probably the same the galaxy over," Xander said as they began to cross another stream of sludge.

"Trust me on that, Harris. They really are," O'Neill said from behind him.

"Nice to know that my world is not as backward as some these days might claim. And ewww, disgusting!" Leale said, looking down at her feet. Xander followed her gaze to see what looked like a used condom stuck to her foot.

"Definitely gross-o-rama," Xander said, feeling for the girl. You just shouldn't be having to deal with those kinds of slayer wardrobe issues until at least the second or third month on the job. "Seems like you should get some sort of a clothing allowance from the cantors for those kinds of replacement emergencies. And if they don't, get word to me, and I'll send you a nice care package from Earth."

"Are they of the same quality as the flashlight?"

"I can find you something you'll like even better than the flashlight," he promised. Leale had definitely gotten the short end of it when she had gotten called as the Taigan slayer. If there was something Xander could do to make her life and job happier in the whole mess, he wanted to do that for her, even if it involved something as scary as venturing into the good malls in Denver for her. Maybe if all went well, he could even manage to get permission for her to take a nice vacation to Earth when there was a lull in Taigan vampire activity.

"I'm not sure about that," Salim said. "I've seen what your women wear."

"There's far more to women's fashion than whatever you've seen on people coming through the gate. And gods, I know it well since my best friends in high school were girls who knew the difference between a real and fake Fendi purse at ten paces. Besides, when all of this is said and done, your people are going to owe Leale a little bit of shopping therapy-related happiness," Xander said.

"Not to interrupt the probably plans for a sleepover and hair braiding party, Harris, but does anyone else have the feeling that we're going in circles?" O'Neill said.

"That is because we are starting to double back in our travels. I recognize the writings on that wall from earlier," Teal'c said.

"What is the reason for this?" Salim demanded of their prisoner.

"Um, no real reason. I just haven't spent much time in these parts of the sewers," he answered.

"So if he doesn't know where we're going, do I get to stake him now?" Leale said. Xander resisted the impulse to blurt out 'that's my girl'.

"No, no, I can figure it out," the vampire said. "If going right here didn't work, then I'm positive I remember that we need to go left, and then two rights."

"Think he forgot on purpose?" Carter said.

"What, like he was trying to buy time for a rescue party to find him?" Dr. Jackson said.

"Or for someone ahead of him to learn we're out here, and have the time to set a trap for us. Is that's what's happening?" O'Neill said.

"No, no. I wouldn't do that to you, what with you agreeing not to stake me and all," the vampire said, doing his best groveling impression.

"Like we'd believe you. Never trust a vampire is right up there with never get involved in a land war in Asia, or never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line. Can't get much more basic than that," Xander said. The Taigans looked puzzled, but he got a smile from Dr. Jackson, and to his surprise, Carter.

"No, no. I will lead you to your John Shore. He's not good enough for Dainan. Never was, and we were always fond of the girl, so we'll go straight there now to find him, I promise," the vampire said.

"They're just on the other side of that tunnel," the vampire promised.

"And do we believe him this time?" the Earth woman asked.

"We do. I can feel them gathering there," Leale said. It was curious. It wasn't like she could see or hear the vampires. She could just feel their presence at some sort of gut level.

"The Slayer radar system is apparently online now," Xander said. She liked him even if she wasn't quite sure what he was talking about half the time.

"Are you sure they're there?" Salim said.

"Positive."

Then we no longer have a need for him anymore," Salim said. He quickly drove a wooden stake into the vampire's heart. The vampire disintegrated, and there was a pause only partly filled by Salim's brief prayer for the man's soul, and Dr. Jackson's sneezing.

"I wish we didn't have to do that," Carter said. "It seems like there should be some way of driving out the demon and giving them their soul back."

"Just a reminder that there's that whole being dead before the demon reanimates them that makes them different than anything Goa'uld-related," Xander said.

"Can we go then? The sooner to get away from the smell, the better, I think," Leale said.

They crossed the tunnel, went up a short incline, and then entered a room that had probably started out as a natural cavern. There were probably twenty of the vampires surrounding a vampire that had the look of one of the off-worlders.

"Lt. Shore, why are you AWOL and out of uniform?" O'Neill demanded.

"Because I decided that I'd had enough of the getting shuffled from place to place and having to hope my sorry ass could stay one step ahead of the Goa'uld. You know how it goes, Dr. Jackson. Find a nice native girl and settle down. Maybe hope that there will be the pitter patter of little footsteps down the line," Shore said.

"Or in this case, the hissing of tiny little fangs," Xander said.

"I'm not sure what you mean," Shore said.

"He's definitely one of them," Leale said confidently.

"Shore, we know what happened to you. We learned about it when we debriefed Brophy after he came back through the Stargate," Carter said.

"Then how about an offer. You agree to leave Taiga and not come back, and I let you. I just want to be left alone here," Shore said.

"What, left alone to take control of my world? You people have the promise to become something even worse than the Goa'uld," Leale said, feeling the anger growing inside her. There may be many planets out there, but Taiga was hers. She wasn't going to let anyone come and destroy more of her people and her family.

"Consider the offer off the table then. And since I'm not the type to follow the Evil Overlord list and keep talking until you get a chance to have the upper hand, men attack the off worlders, and capture the girl and the cantor for my lady's pleasure," Shore ordered.

The battle began, and Leale found herself getting small glimpses of the rest of it as she fought the vampires that charged toward her. At one moment, Salim fell to the ground, but before the vampire could take advantage of the fall, Dr. Jackson was there to prevent it from hitting Salim's head to knock him out. At another point, she found herself back to back with Teal'c as they cut down more vampires that tried to encircle them. There was Xander, stake in one hand and glowing knife in the other, working the killing dance against a clumsy pair that vainly attempted to work together to take him down. Then she caught a blur of movement as Shore tried to make a run for safety.

She crossed the room faster than he did. As she caught up with him, she grabbed him by the shoulder and threw him into the cave's wall. She brought up her own stake and knife to the ready as he turned to fight her. Her whole attention focused on the man who had brought evil to her world, who had done so much hard to her family and village. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the others finish up their destruction of the thief vampires and turn to watch her fight with Shore.

He was a better fighter than the thieves had been. It shouldn't have surprised her since the Terrans seem to devote far more time to learning how to fight amongst themselves. Leale found herself quickening her movement around the room until it was almost a dance with the other man. For all that they were ugly, she was glad to be wearing trousers since she surely would have tripped herself up wearing pants. Then finally, Shore let her guard down just enough for her to thrust her stake into his chest.

There was surprise and shock in his face as the wood went in true.

"What the hell?"

"There's a new sheriff in town, goes by the name of the Slayer," Xander said.

There was a brief moment of recognition in John Shore's face before it crumbled into dust along with the rest of them.


	18. Chapter 18

"It is my understanding that you have killed the one that brought your vampire curse to our world, and many of his followers as well. But that there are likely others that remain that are vampire-cursed, and they are still able to spread that curse?" Darvil said to the group of Terrans and Taigans gathered for a post-sewers debriefing session.

"That's an accurate description of what happened," Jack said.

"Too many unintended consequences since we allowed the Terrans onto our world," Malek grumbled.

"And yet despite it all, we can still do much good with what we learn from them. Provided that our people are properly guided by the Vizcars," Kelene said.

"We do not need to air the College's internal politics before outsiders," Darvil chided as he waved his hand toward the group that included SG-1 as well as Salim and Leale.

In other words, don't argue in front of the kids, Jack thought.

"Maybe it is good for them to hear what a mess they've introduced into our world," Malek said.

"I think that they are well aware of that problem. And now is the time when we will tell them what our judgment of how they will aid Taiga in addressing the problem they caused," Darvil said, leaving Jack with a mental picture of Air Commandos crawling through every sewer on the planet in search of the newly fanged.

"How can we help you?" he said, managing not to sigh.

"Once more, we are requesting technical assistance from your people in training ours how to contain the vampire curse. Let us make it clear that we do not wish for you to send more troops to Taiga to search for the cursed, and that we will take such actions as indications that you do not respect our sovereignty. Before the Vizcars united Taiga, it was common for one city to use another city's misfortune as an excuse for an invasion. We will not allow our planet to be treated as such," Darvil said.

"And it is also the belief of the College that it is best to have a Taigan solution to what has become a Taigan problem," Malek said.

"We'll do our best to provide you with the technical assistance," Jack said, doing his best to keep his face blank. With all the other active hot spots Stargate Command currently had to manage, he was glad that he wasn't looking at a permanent garrison on a planet that hadn't had Goa'uld activity anytime in the recent past.

There was a discussion of just what technical assistance was wanted. In Jack's view, the Taigan's requests were reasonable, and he informed them that, while he had to clear it with his own superiors, he expected there to be no problems with their request.

"Um, sirs and ma'ams? Can I request one more thing here?" Harris spoke up from where he had been whispering with Leale.

"Depends what it is, Harris." Jack said.

"While I know a lot about vampires and Slayers, there are people back on Earth that know far more about the subject than I do. When things get settled here a little bit, I'd like permission for Leale and Salim to come to Earth for a couple of weeks to train and learn from the guy that taught me about the things that growl in the night."

"We'll see what we can do, Harris," Jack said. The negotiation had been going too well until that point. So of course, he was now going to find himself having to justify entangling a civilian in SG's very classified projects.

"You know, Harris, I wouldn't have thought that shopping for fabric was considered to be an essential part of the training of a Slayer," Jack said as he circled around the commercial district of the small English village on a futile quest for a parking space.

"Sir, I can verify that shopping in general is an essential Slayer activity. Leale's really not that different in that regard. The three hours I once spent with, um, with another Slayer looking for the perfect pair of shoes to go with her little blue skirt were actually worse than the five hours in the previous fabric store." Jack noticed that for all that Xander had given him the real identity of the person also known as Robert Ripper, he still was careful not to directly identify the name of the current Slayer of Earth.

"Okay, I can understand the four hours in the camping store. The flashlights she got there will work far better for night work than the lanterns the Taigans have on their own place, and she got enough batteries for a small town to stay lit for a week after a hurricane. And a lot of what else she got there will have uses in the field as well. But the fabric stores?"

"Leale felt like current Earth fashion was not appropriate for daily life on Taiga, and she wants to make her own clothing that will be appropriate to slay in. That, and the way she seemed so happy to see all the fabric colors that Taiga just doesn't have the technology to mass produce, and considering what her life is going to be like from here on out, I want to see her to be happy," Xander said.

"There's something in the way you say that which makes me think there's more to the Slayer story than what you've said so far," Jack said.

"Sir, from the records I've seen, the average age of death for Slayers is sixteen years, seven months. Granted, Leale only has to deal with vampires, and not the other nasty Big Bads you find on Earth, but she's going to spend the rest of her life with a giant bull's eye pained on her back right on top of that purple and green orchid and palm tree print fabric she got yesterday."

"Shit."

"No shit, sir. I wish it was different for the Slayers because it sucks to be them. But I don't know how to change the system without screwing a bunch of stuff up even worse, so I just do what I can to make it good for however long they've got, including trying to make the time they have as long as possible."

"When the General gets the credit card bills, I'll tell him to have his accountants credit Leale's shopping spree to the morale activities for our allies account. Then they'll turn around and hide it in the base plumbing supplies expenses account."

"So that's how the Air Force ends up buying five hundred toilet seats," Harris said. The kid really was a lot sharper than he normally let on.

"Honest truth. But that's classified information, and if you tell anyone else, I'll have to shoot you."

"Understood, sir," Harris said as he chuckled.

Jack circled the block one more time, and this time was rewarded not with a parking spot, but the sight of Leale, Salim, Carter, and their RAF liason Captain Miller standing outside of the store. Carter waved down Jack's SUV. She had to, since the other three were loaded down with yet more shopping bags.

"How'd the hunt go?" Harris asked as he slid out of the passenger side in order to help the others load the back of the SUV.

"Very successful," Leale said. To Jack, she sounded happy at her latest haul.

"How's our time schedule, Captain Miller?" he asked after they all settled into the truck.

"Unless there's an accident, we shouldn't have a problem getting to our appointment on time," Miller said from the shotgun seat as he pulled a small road atlas out of his coat pocket. For this trip, they had gone with civilian clothing.

Following Miller's directions, Jack drove out of the village and past a series of small farms perched on rolling hills. It was pretty enough to be something right out of a painting. He turned north at another area labeled as a village, but small enough to contain only a gas station, pub, small school, and a scattering of houses. He then went east until he found the countryside home of one Rupert Giles, AKA Robert Ripper.

"I'm gonna have to let the crowd back home know that Giles really does live in a house that looks like a hobbit hole," Harris said.

"What's a hobbit?" Salim said.

"A fictional character that as far as I know, really is fictional. I'll have to send copies of the first four or five books back with you along with everything else," Harris replied as Jack turned down a short gravel driveway.

They all piled out of the SUV, and as they walked toward the neat English cottage, a fiftyish thin man with glasses opened the door.

Hello there," Rupert Giles said.

"Hey Giles, I brought friends over for tea," Harris said, smiling as he gave his friend a pat on the back.

"The kettle is already on if anyone wants to have a cup."

"Don't suppose you've got supplies on hand for a mango green tea frappachino with extra ice?"

"Heathen American," Giles said with a smile.

"I've gotta be me," Harris said. Giles was clearly one of Harris' People. For all the information that Harris had been willing to pass along to SGC on the supernatural, he had always held a little of himself back during the process. With Giles, Harris' normal reserve was totally gone.

"And I'm not sure if that's a blessing or a curse," Giles said as he lead the group into a surprisingly large living room, or lounge as Captain Miller would have described it.

They quickly worked through introductions, food and drink was offered and politely accepted, and then Captain Miller opened up his briefcase. It was time to have a serious talk with a man that Jack's own government had had a few blacked out interactions with even as MI-5 swore that their own blacked out records showed that Giles was a hero in service to the Queen of England.

"Okay, Mr. Giles, I'm told you've done this before, and you know how this all works. What I have here is a standard one day contract for a civilian contractor working with the RAF. If you will sign here, you will be paid for that one day, regardless of whether or not you choose to aid the RAF in this endeavor."

Giles quickly but thoroughly looked over the brief contract, and the page that came after the contract. He signed both of them before passing them back to Miller.

"Now if you ladies and gentlemen would please tell me what is serous enough to not only send Xander to England to look for me, but also to have me sign papers making it clear that what's discussed here is covered under Section 2 of the Official Secrets Act?"

Jack glanced at Harris, giving him an indication it was time for him to start talking. He was the one who had enough of a background with both SGC and the supernatural to have it make sense for an outsider.

"The summary version of it all is that a couple years ago, the Air Force stumbled across the technology that let them create portals between worlds. And they discovered that there were sometimes other humans that had been sent to those worlds centuries ago using the same portal technology. And there are more than just other humans out there, including some being that would probably rate as Big Bads on the old Sunnyhell Scale of Doom and Destruction. So the government has spent the last couple years fighting those Big Bads the best they could, and for the most part, they've been doing a pretty good job of it. I mean, you wouldn't believe they're part of the same armed forces as the Army, what with how badly the Army fucked up in Sunnydale in all, and darn I'm really getting into that whole inter-services rivalry aren't I?

Anyways, they were cruising along, holding down the fort, and making the universe safe for truth, justice, and all that. But then a mistake happened, and a vampire got through the portal when it shouldn't have. End result, the Powers started drafting people to keep the vampires from overrunning that world."

Giles' eyes flicked around the group in the living room.

"Since you're the one telling the story, I assume you're one of the ones who has been unfortunate enough to draw the Powers' attention? And the other two would be Leale and Salim?"

"I told you he was good," Harris said as he pulled a small cloth out of his pocket and passed it to Giles, who reflexively pulled off his glasses and wiped the dust off of them.

"The house wards picked them up as they went through the door. And I must say it isn't often that they register a visitor as human but not of this earth," Giles said, putting his glasses back on.

Jack found himself wondering if they could invest in that sort of protective system for the Gate. It would have solved several problems for them over the years.

"Now that Captain Miller has done the Sicilian blood oath thing, or what ever you European people do, I can formally introduce to you Leal, the Slayer of the planet Taiga. Apparently the Powers have decided that the rule is one Slayer per planet infested with vampires. And Cantor Salim has agreed to start up as a Watchers organization on Taiga. I figured that you were the person to tell him how to do that since you're the one person with the Earth group that treats the Slayer like a person and not some sort of damn wind-up toy for the old guys to use for whatever."

"Xander said you knew even more about vampires than he did, even though he's been great so far with helping us figure out what's going on," Leale said, offering a shy smile to Giles.

"I try my best, as we all have in the fight against darkness. And I feel like Xander was doing more than well enough on his own when he entered the Air Force. Was there some more specific reason you came here?"

"To start with, the Taigans need to have a spell or a device, or a magic whatsit so that if something happens to Leale, they can more easily figure out if another Slayer has been called to follow her," Xander began.

After topping of everyone's mugs of tea, Giles walked over toward a bookshelf in the hallway between the living room and the kitchen. He pulled out a volume that had something in Latin written on the spine, and began to flip through the pages.

"Do your people have magic and magicians on your world, Cantor Salim?" Giles said.

"Our magicians perform tricks at celebrations and street fairs," Salim said.

"I'll take that as a no in this context then," Giles said. "So we'll probably be needing a device that anyone can use."

Jack watched the scene unfold around him as Giles, Harris, and the Taigans began to discuss the best way to handle the position of Slayer of Taiga and everything it involved. As he did, he wished Daniel had been able to make the trip to England. For all that there were a thousand different cultures out there on other planets, he knew that the other man would love to see what was starting to play out only a few thousand miles from Colorado as Giles mumbled a series of phrases that made a triangular stone point toward Leale.

Finis.


End file.
